The Other Daughter
by Rachel987
Summary: A story imagining Carol had an older daughter, Juliet, who happened to be with her family for the first time in a long time when the apocalypse hit, making her troubled relationship with her family suddenly the least of her worries.
1. Chapter 1

AN: So I recently finished watching TWD and obviously loved it and I'd had this idea in my head for a while watching it but only upon finishing it have I been able to write it. It was just this little 'what if' type scenario playing around in my head as to what things might have been like had Carol had another, older daughter, and so Juliet was formed. It's also kind of intended to give some insight in to other characters, what they're thinking at certain events. I would like to clarify that just because I made her up doesn't mean I'm going to insert Juliet in to every single important event which happened in the show because that just wouldn't realistically happen. Basically each chapter is titled after the episode it's based on and events will pretty much follow the TV series, some dialogue will be taken from it if I feel it's important. Some chapters may be ridiculously long, others short depending which events I'm documenting.

I'm also having to write like I hate some characters who I genuinely love (Carol mainly), and as though I like characters I really don't (Lori mainly) but as characters change so will opinions of them from others so bear with me.

Also I realise I'm not doing the colloquialisms properly. I tried. I failed. Please forgive me.

I think that's about it. Enjoy!

Days Gone Bye

Sophia

As a much younger child, Sophia had always felt rather alone in the world. Her father was uninterested in her, and her mother, although she tried her best, had too much else to worry about. It had therefore always been of some comfort to her on the odd occasions that her sister would pay her the smallest amount of attention she could. Juliet was solitary where Sophia liked to find other people to play with and talk to. Despite this, it was not until Juliet had moved out at the end of one long summer that she realised several very important things. One was how much older than her Juliet really was, as for Sophia the talk of college and leaving home seemed too far in the future to comprehend, and for Juliet it was already happening. Another was just how much she would miss her, as even though she spent minimal time with her, Sophia could always hear her, laughing on the phone, playing her guitar, singing badly in the shower, little reminders that Sophia was not utterly alone in the world. The last she learnt was possibly the hardest for her to accept, but nonetheless she did. It was that, love her younger sister as she did, not even Sophia was enough to force Juliet to stay where she did not want to.

Sophia watched now as her sister basked in the Georgia sunlight. Seeing Juliet it would be easy to mistake the direness of their situation for something much less urgent. There was never really a sense of urgency about her, and she tended to do things slowly and leisurely, never running when the opportunity to walk was there.

Her sister was not dressed for the apocalypse that she found herself in. She had been visiting her family, although she had been reluctant to come, and had only what she had packed in her suitcase. She had heard Juliet say before that, if not for Sophia, she would never come home, and it brought upon her an odd feeling of pride, knowing that she mattered more than her parents, although she would never say so, not after how upset her mother had become when Juliet told her so. It made no difference anyway; Juliet still barely spoke to her, favouring her new friend Amy over her sister. There were seven years between them and very little common ground. She recalled Juliet remarking on a number of occasions how she wished she was older so they could talk about 'real things'. Sophia was never quite sure what she meant by this, as before everything Juliet preferred conversations about books and television to real events, but she never questioned her.

She watched Juliet laugh at something Amy said, pushing her dark blonde hair back from her face, dark blue eyes sparkling beneath the glasses she wore. Juliet often thanked whichever higher power was listening that they hadn't broken yet. She could see alright without them but it strained her eyes to go for too long, and no-one wanted to give her more reason to complain about things.

"Sophia, sweetheart, you okay?" her mother asked her and she looked up and smiled. Her voice was always soft and reassuring. Sophia nodded. "Good. I'm just going back to the tent for a few minutes, I'll be right back." She walked away from her, and again Sophia studied her sister, thinking what an odd contrast to her mother she was. She knew her mother's hair had been long once but it had been darker than Juliet's, and now it was short. They looked similar, though Juliet's eyes were larger and blue and her lips slightly plumper. Her mother was also smaller than her; Juliet was fairly curvy where her mother seemed too thin at times.

"Sophia." Immediately she wondered if it might be her mother again but the voice was wrong, a little too high pitched and noticeably colder than her mother's tone ever was. There was also far less of a southern twang to her voice; two years at college in California had taken its toll. "I've been talking to you for like, three minutes. Would you please go find someone to watch you, okay, 'cause me and Amy wanna go for a walk and Carol said not to leave you by yourself." Sophia didn't understand why Juliet never called her 'Mom', but she's been doing it for too many years to question now. "Why don't you go play with Carl? He seems like a nice kid."

"Okay!" Sophia smiled brightly at her sister and she smiled back at her, ruffling her hair.

"Have fun, okay? Don't tell Carol I'm gone, she'll get all worried about me. I'm not going far from camp. Just need to stretch our legs, don't we Amy?"

"Yeah, and we haven't been to annoy Dixon all day. Might start to think we're going soft on him, and we can't have that!" Amy chimed in cheerfully. She knew by Dixon the two meant the younger of the two brothers that she seldom saw at camp, who when he did come by berated Juliet's outfit choices and took her in to the woods to help him hunt. She had followed them one day because she had nothing better to do and she thought it was odd that he never brought much back when he went with her. The pair had walked for over four miles before they stopped. Sophia had been exhausted but she kept going. She hadn't really been able to see what was going on, but that didn't stop her from hearing the gun shot, Juliet clamouring happily about how she almost hit straight, and him saying gruffly that nearly wasn't going to be good enough. She has stayed and watched her try to perfect her aim before the two gave up and went back. She knew why they kept it secret; her father had expressly forbidden Juliet from learning to shoot when a few other people around camp had offered, and he made his dislike for Daryl clear. If he found out, Sophia wasn't sure which he would be most angry about.

Breaking out of her daydream, Sophia noticed Amy and her sister walking away from camp, chatting together quietly. She did as her sister has implored her and got up to go and find Carl and spent a very pleasant afternoon with him.

Juliet

"I only realised this morning how badly I miss my hairdryer." Juliet nodded in agreement with Amy, although she'd never really spent enough time doing her hair to notice the absence of electrical hair products. "I mean it's been a month and a half and I'm still thinking of things to miss, belongings I'll never see again, and it always seems so petty, y'know? My parents are gone and all I can think about is my stupid hairdryer."

"I don't think you should feel bad that you're missing your stuff. We all are." How Juliet had ended up friends with someone like Amy was beyond her comprehending. She was quiet and kept mostly to herself, and Amy was loud and outgoing. Sure, she was opinionated, but she was only ever like that around people she was comfortable with. She hated meeting new people. Being thrown in to a camp with so many strangers had been Juliet's idea of hell, not helped by the fact she had to either trust them or go out on her own and brave the zombies. Walkers. Whatever it was that Shane called them. She wondered if calling them anything but zombies was because no-one could bear to de-humanise them in such a harsh way, or whether it was just so it seemed less like science fiction. It did all still seem rather surreal to her; it only made sense that others would feel the same and do everything possible to make it seem realer so they could deal with it.

"But then I was going through all the other stuff I miss." Amy carried on as though she had not spoken and she sighed softly. "Like my flat iron, my TV, Wi-Fi, and then I felt even worse." She wondered if there was a point to this story. Like many of Amy's there probably wouldn't be. Juliet however, listened with a smile on her face. She would rather be alone, reading, but if that wasn't an option then she was quite happy to listen to Amy chattering. Even if she was scaring all the wildlife away.

Juliet murmured in agreement with anything she said, tired after another night of not sleeping. She opened her mouth to say something to Amy, wanting to ask her to repeat what she has just said when an arrow flew past her ear.

She froze in horror. Amy screamed. She winced at the high-pitched sound she made. Usually she was quite willing to put up with her little ticks but today she had no patience left, and after having spent the whole day with her she was beginning to grow tired of the other girl.

"Son of a bitch." she swore under her breath, marching over to the tree it had hit. She saw it had pinned a squirrel to the trunk and yanked it out, tossing away the squirrel and throwing the arrow to the floor, snapping it with her foot. It was wooden and probably easily replaced, but she felt it made her point well enough.

"What the hell d'ya do that for?" She watched coldly as Daryl walked over.

"Next time you nearly hit me with one of those things it'll be the damn crossbow I stamp on. Consider yourself lucky." As the two stood glaring at each other she realised that for once, Amy was being quiet, not wanting to get involved. She might not care about the repercussions of getting herself on his bad side, but Amy wasn't one to take a chance on something like that.

"Don' walk so close to where I'm huntin' next time." She rolled her eyes exasperatedly.

"Since when do you hunt this close to camp anyway?" she asked, still irritated with him.

"Trackin' a deer. Not my fault it came close to here." He sounded disinterested, but he very rarely didn't. She thought of demanding an apology but she knew it would fall on deaf ears and be a waste of breath. "Not my fault you got in the way either." She was above rising to it.

"Come on, Amy, let's go."

Amy nodded and began to walk away. Juliet went to follow her before she heard her name. She turned around slowly and quirked an eyebrow.

"When d'you want your next lesson?"

"I'm free this afternoon if it's convenient." she suggested quietly. Amy would notice she wasn't behind her listening to her rambling soon and she would come back.

"Nah, I ain't got time." She tried not to wince visibly. She was an English major. Bad grammar made her skin crawl and it was only coming back to Georgia that she realised just how much southern colloquialisms annoyed her. She wasn't up herself enough to correct it with most people, but she did with Sophia. The idea of her little sister growing up not speaking properly was quite horrific. "We'll do it tomorrow afternoon." He didn't show her the same courtesy of asking if that was good for her, just assumed it was or that if it wasn't she'd make time. It was amazing that he was teaching her to shoot at all, that she hadn't had to ask but he had offered, she could at the very least make herself available when he wanted her to be.

"Okay."

"You should go now before the other one comes back." She rolled her eyes. He hadn't bothered to learn the names of many people in camp. It was a miracle he remembered hers, and he probably only did because they were around each other quite a lot.

"I literally said her name two minutes ago. How does all that go over your head?" He shrugged and she sighed. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya."

She refrained from rolling her eyes until she was somewhere between Amy and Daryl. Sure enough, Amy hadn't even noticed her hanging back, and the two fell back in to step with each other. She was praying for anything but another one-sided conversation, which luckily happened as Amy began gushing about her favourite films.

"Some Like It Hot is probably my favourite film of all time." she added when Amy began talking about it. A friend had made Juliet watch it a few years ago and she had loved it ever since. It was her go to movie when she was upset. A few days before everything had kicked off, when she had first arrived back home, she had watched it again. She might have enjoyed it more, and willed herself to stay awake through it all instead of falling asleep in the middle if she had known she would probably never see it again.

"Twins!" Amy had exclaimed, before going on to quiz her about what other classic movies she liked, and most of the ones she mentioned Amy loved. She explained the plot of All About Eve to her, and the other girl seemed regretful that she had never gotten the chance to watch it.

"Uh, Amy?" Juliet interrupted a woeful monologue about all the films she would never see now, and to her credit, Amy looked at her immediately and smiled.

"Somethin' wrong?"

"D'you have any idea where we are?" Amy looked around the expanse of woods they found themselves traipsing through and looked worried suddenly.

"Oh God, I wasn't paying any attention. I don't even know how far we've walked. Omigawd we're gonna die!" Juliet covered her mouth trying not to laugh. Yes, it wasn't a great situation but she loved how Amy blew everything out of proportion. She was so quiet in the group, but on her own she was dramatic and loud, and though she usually avoided people like that, it was actually one of the things Juliet liked most about Amy.

"We'll be fine." Juliet attempted to sound assured, but she was sure she didn't. "We can just follow our track back the way we came, right?" Looking down at the ground she realised this would be harder than anticipated. There was no wet mud, barely any indication of where they had walked. Nevertheless, she began to walk back a way which looked familiar, Amy following her, which the blind faith that she knew what she was going.

As a child in the woods behind her house, Juliet had loved getting lost. She would head out at sunrise, before the rest of her family awoke with a book, and sit all day reading in a tree and then realise she had no idea how to get back from where she was. Sometimes she would be closer to the house than he realised, more often than not she just would have gone a little further than the last time. As she got older the woods became more familiar to her than anywhere else, and she missed the sensation of being lost, romanticising it in her head. Now, lost again and older she felt like she has the first time, and she remembered why she had always tried so hard to get back, even if she completely hated what she was going back to.

"Juliet?" Amy had been silent for longer than Juliet had ever known her to be, and it surprised her when she spoke again in a very timid voice. "Do you have any idea where we are?" She thought about lying, but it was useless, she knew that. She turned around and looked at Amy and shook her head slowly. Amy bit her lip and looked as though she was trying not to cry. She felt intensely guilty for not being able to get them back to camp yet. Sad crystalline eyes looked at her as Amy leant against a tree and sighed softly.

"We can't be that far. I'm sure we've come sort of the same way." It had sounded like a more reassuring sentence in her head than it did aloud. Nonetheless, Amy nodded.

"We'll find our way back eventually."

"But it's getting dark. Won't this place just be full of walker after that?" She fought the urge to scream at her. Pointing out more problems was never going to help them find a solution, and they desperately needed one.

As she was about to say something the pair heard a twig snap. Amy looked at her worriedly, but Juliet took a breath before she picked a large stick of the ground, brandishing it in case anything came for them. Neither had guns or more substantial weapons; they had never needed them on their walks before and most stayed with those in the group who were more apt at using them. Still, a large heavy stick would be enough to take down a walker, and it would do it quietly without attracting them by making more noise. Juliet hoped it would do the job.

"You're fuckin' kiddin', right, that's all you have?" She sighed in relief and dropped the makeshift weapon, resisting the urge to hit Daryl who had emerged from the trees, now laden with dead squirrels. Amy looked at him uncomfortably. She looked more the type to sing to small woodland animals and let them dress her in the mornings than hunt and eat them.

"We're not allowed better weapons." she answered, not bothering to yell at him for creeping up on the two of them.

"Then why the hell d'you come out here?"

"Needed a break." she replied with a shrug. "Never had trouble before."

"'Cept now you're lost."

"We're not lost."

"Yeah we are." Amy cut in and she sighed. She'd rather be out there for days more blundering around unable to find their way back than admit how terrible her navigational skills were to Daryl. "How do we get back?" Juliet tried not to groan audibly. She hated anyone to think they were better than her.

"Go North."

"Which way is North?" Amy asked.

"That way." Juliet said, pointing before Daryl could make her seem any stupider. Amy however looked to him for clarification, and seemed only happy to take her word for it once he had nodded in conformation.

"Nex' time you come out here without a weapon and I find you, I'll sling you over my shoulder and drag you back to camp myself, you understand me?" He was talking directly to her now, not to Amy. Juliet frowned and turned to Amy.

"Come on. We need to head back now." Juliet told her and she nodded. Juliet linked her arm with hers and the two walked away. They reached camp in under twenty minutes, and Amy, relieved, dropped her arm and ran back to her sister. Juliet really didn't have anyone to run back to, so she sat on a log by herself silently. She could see her sister playing with three other kids, Eliza and Louis Morales, and Carl Grimes. She looked up and caught Carl's mothers eye who was also watching them play and smiled at her softly. She contemplated going to get a book, but just as she was about to Lori came and sat beside her.

"It's good there's a few kids here. Carl'd get so bored without the others." Lori said, gaze drifting back over to the four of them.

"Yeah, so would Sophia. She was always such a sociable kid. She keeps asking Carol about all her friends and where they are. I have no idea how I'd handle it if I had a kid. I mean how do you even begin to explain something like this to them?" Lori smiled weakly and looked away from her son and back to Juliet. Juliet pushed a long strand of blonde hair out of her face.

"It's not easy. Telling Carl his Dad didn't make it… I almost lied. I almost said that he was okay and he was gonna meet us later, but he deserved to know, to not have false hope. Honestly I'm just taking it one day at a time. God knows what kind of life for him there's going to be. I can't ever see this… hell ending."

"No. Neither can I."

The two women were very quiet for a moment before Sophia rushed over, dragging Eliza behind her, both grinning happily.

"Sorry to interrupt, Mrs Grimes, but can Juliet come play with us?" Sophia asked. Eliza looked down at the ground shyly, but nodded. Juliet looked at Lori who smiled at her and rolled her eyes almost unperceivably.

"Sophia, what did I tell you 'bout callin' me Lori? And I think it's up to Juliet whether she goes with you or not."

"Well since you asked so nicely, and I have been putting it off for a few days I may as well." Juliet said, and the two ran off. "I'll catch up in a minute!" she called after them. "It was good talking to you Lori, I'll see you later." Lori grinned at her.

"Have fun with the kids. Watch out for Carl for me, could you? I'm goin' to find Shane."

"Course I will." she answered. They both got up, and as Lori walked over to the tents to check for Shane, she went towards the kids who all grinned at her. Sophia tackled her into a hug, and she stroked her hair softly before the younger girl let her go. "So, what are y'all playing then? How do I win?" She grinned as they explained the game to her. She was old enough to know that she should let the kids win, but not quite old enough that she was willing to. Despite trying genuinely hard she lost to Carl, after which she exhaustedly decided to go down to the lake before dinner to wash quickly.

"It was good of you to let him win." Lori said with a smile as she walked past, obviously having returned to her seat while Juliet was otherwise occupied.

"Well, there comes a point when you get old enough that you know it's the right thing to do." Lori nodded and carried on chopping up whatever she was making for dinner, and Juliet walked past her and down to the lake.

The next morning, after begrudgingly helping with the laundry, she sat by herself. A few members of the camp had gone in to Atlanta, and Amy was worried about her sister Andrea who had gone along with them, which meant she wasn't really in the mood for talking. She might have gone out to the forest by herself, but Daryl, who was probably out hunting again, if he'd even gone back at all, and risking running in to him unarmed, put her off doing that, so she was stuck. She'd probably get roped in to helping with the dinner sooner or later, but they wouldn't start that until at least after midday which meant a morning of nothing. Again. She wished she had gone with the others to the city, but it wasn't like she would have been much help. Plus, as much as she was grateful to the younger of the Dixon brothers for teaching her to defend herself, she didn't have to like the older of the two, and she sure as hell wasn't going to volunteer to go out on the same run he insisted on going on.

"There y'are." Juliet froze and looked up. The figure loomed, blocking out the sunlight, with a voice cold and recognisable. She knew her own voice was clod and lacked emotion, but that was because she forcibly blocked it out. He was just like that.

"Yes, daddy?" she asked, willing herself to keep her eyes fixed on him, to not look away. She wished she wasn't by herself. It was harder to handle him when she was.

"You wash them shirts I gave you this mornin'?" she nodded. "Good. Your bitch mother ain't been doin' 'em proper. Nex' time you do 'em get your sister to help. She needs to stop being so fuckin' useless." She nodded again and pursed her lips together. Of all the times there might have been an apocalypse, it would have had to be the one time she had come home from college, the first time in two years that she had seen this man. She would have to be stuck with him, forced to see him every day, watching as he treated her mother the same way he always had, unashamed to do it so the others could see.

"I'll put them in your tent when they're dry." Her voice was small, quiet, scared, everything she'd felt as those years she lived with him flooding back in a few seconds. He wasn't even here to hurt her. He hadn't since all this had started; she always made sure to be around other people when she saw him just in case he tried to. He might not have been above hitting his wife in front of them but he wouldn't let the others watch him hit his daughter.

He grunted in wordless acknowledgement and wandered away from her, and finally she felt as though she could breathe again.

"Y'okay?"

She looked up at Shane who had replaced her father, and motioned for him to take the seat next to her, which he did with a half-hearted smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine." It didn't sound assured at all, but Shane knew better than to question it.

Juliet felt around him the way she did around most good-looking men who she didn't know very well – extremely awkward. She had little to no common ground with him, at least none that she had discovered, yet he was nice to her and always tried to talk to her. She saw the looks of disdain he gave Ed when Carol turned up with fresh bruises. He always went over in the evenings when her three family members sat alone. He always made sure her little sister was okay. He seemed like a good guy. He was one of the few people she had met that she trusted.

"Look, it's not my place to say anything, but your Dad gives you any trouble you come to me, you understand?" Her eyes flitted to her mother who had already started ironing some clothes, probably ones that had dried from the day before.

"Thank you, for that, but it's really not me you need to be worried about." He followed her gaze which remained resting on Carol and nodded, a gesture which she could barely see out of the corner of her eye.

"Well, I'll watch out for the both of you."

She might have said something else, but it was with slight surprise that she instead heard the crackling of the radio and a voice coming over it. Amy was at it in an instant, trying to reply to whoever was speaking on it. She could barely make out one word from another, trying to reply.

"We're just outside the city." She was saying in to it, although her voice did not appear to be going through to whoever was speaking on the other end of the transmission. "Dammit!" she exclaimed, clearly having lost it altogether. "Hello? Hello?" she kept trying, although it now seemed even more futile than before. "He couldn't hear me. I couldn't warn him." Amy spoke to no-one in particular and sounded rather defeated by the whole affair.

"Try to raise him again." Juliet looked to where the voice was coming from, Dale, a man of probably over sixty sat atop his RV, as always with his binoculars and a shotgun close by his side, keeping watch. If she was tallying how many people she trusted, at least to keep them safe, Dale was probably among them, although she couldn't recall ever speaking to him outside of the group. "Come on, son. You know best how to work this thing." He was looking at Shane now, and he nodded, leaving Juliet alone and went towards the radio.

Amy

"Hello, hello, is the person who calls still on the air?" As Shane began to speak in to the radio, now transmitting only static, Amy went to stand with Juliet and gave her a look of confusion, which her friend returned. Amy knew she wasn't the type of person that someone quiet like Juliet wanted to be around, Juliet wasn't really the type of person she would have been friends with outside this kind of setting either, she was too quiet and bookish, and in turn Amy was too bubbly and childish and she sure as hell wasn't intelligent the way Juliet was, but she needed to be around someone other than her sister and Juliet was on her own too. "This is officer Shane Walsh, broadcasting a person unknown, please respond." Shane continued over the radio. The static however remained, and no reply came through. With a small sigh, Shane put it down. "He's gone."

Amy watched as Lori and her son came over to the group. Lori looked almost relieved that the transmission had come through.

"There are others. It's not just us." she said. She didn't exactly sound happy, but it sounded as though a weight was off her shoulders. Although they had all assumed they couldn't be the only survivors of this, there was always a small doubt in everyone's mind as to whether they might be. The thought was completely isolating, imagining that the twenty odd members of group might be the only inhabitants of the Earth left.

"Yeah, We knew there would be, right, that's why we let the CB on." He had the same relieved tone as Lori, though he had always reminded everyone that there would be others. Still, whoever the man on the other end was, he was the first to come through on the CB. Whether others had tried or not, Amy didn't know.

"Lots of good it's been doing. And I've been saying for a week, we ought to put signs up on 85 to warn people away from the city."

"Folks got no idea what they're getting into." Amy cut in, and beside her, Juliet nodded.

"We don't have enough time." Shane said with a shake of his head.

"I think we need to make time." Lori challenged him.

"I agree." Juliet spoke for the first time since the transmission, cutting Shane off from whatever argument he might have been about to make back. "It's not fair to let people drive in to that. I mean, how much time is it actually gonna take? We make signs up here in the evenings, get the group who go on runs to get us something to make them with, then we get them to take them the next day, it's like an hour we have to spare and we could save a bunch of people." Shane looked quiet.

"The ones who go on runs, we already put them at risk enough by going it to the city, now you want them to travel further down the highway? Which of them is going to agree to that? Who the hell would you propose to send?" Dale interjected.

"I'll go. Give me a vehicle." Lori said sharply, glares split between Dale and Shane.

"Nobody goes anywhere alone, you know that." Shane interjected before she could say anything else to plead her case. Juliet frowned, and Amy watched her closely.

"Well I you won't let her go alone, I'd go with her. I don't care about putting my life at risk; we're saving people from walking in to a city overrun with walkers."

"All due respect, Juliet, you wouldn't be much help, would you, if somethin' happened? Look, we'll talk 'bout this again when things are a lil' more stable 'round here. 'Til then anyone goin' to the city is just gonna have to take their chances." Juliet looked poised and ready to argue this, but Amy put a hand on her arm and silently begged her not to. There had been a lot of arguments in camp over the time they had all been there, a lot of tension, and everyone was just starting to get over it. Whether Juliet agreed with him or not was beside the point. Juliet sighed but nodded and Lori, looking defeated, walked away from the group. Her son went to follow her, but Shane told him to stay back and followed her himself.

"Thanks for the help, Dale." Juliet said, annoyance clear in her tone.

"Juliet, I want these people to die about as much as you do, but we have to think of our own first. We help each other first and other survivors second. You need to remember that." She didn't seem to have an argument to that, so she simply sighed again.

When she had first been at camp, Juliet had been quiet all the time. She had rarely involved herself in group discussions, much less the arguments, but Amy had noticed that as she became more comfortable around all of them, she would speak a lot more, rarely to the whole group but often to individuals, and if she had a relevant point then she would make it in a discussion.

"C'mon, Juliet. Lori said she wanted to go pick mushrooms, and unless you wanna stay here and run about with the little kiddies again or read by yourself you should come along. Hell, you probably know more 'bout them than we do."

"Yeah, I really don't, but I'll help. Remember to take a knife. Wouldn't want to be caught without a weapon in the forest again." Amy chuckled and went to find one as Juliet slipped her shoes on and sat waiting for her to return.

"Ready to go?" Amy asked her. She was daydreaming again, something she slipped in to a lot when she was by herself. Amy wished she could shut off reality that easily, but from the very little Juliet had actually told her about her life, she had been shutting herself off for years, and she'd had ample practice.

"Yeah." Juliet stood up hurridly and Amy wondered why until they left and she turned to see Juliet's mother Carol walking over in the general direction they had been in, although she headed towards her youngest daughter seemingly without a second thought. Obviously she'd been worried that Carol wanted to talk to her. Amy, who had had a very good relationship with both of her parents, didn't really understand it. She hadn't asked and Juliet hadn't offered to tell her. It was clearly personal, and it would be a little out of line for Amy just to ask, although she could be a little insensitive in what she said, not meaning to be, just not thinking much through before she spoke.

The two found Lori easily, and without a word the three women headed in to the forest.


	2. Chapter 2

Guts

Lori

"You two have been gone for ages, how many goddamn mushrooms d'you need?" Lori asked as she watched Amy and Juliet make their way back in to camp. Amy looked pleased with herself, as she carried the majority of them in to camp and Juliet held just a few.

Lori herself was stood with Carl and had been waiting for Amy and Juliet to return for over an hour after Amy having assured her that they would only be ten minutes more. It was the last time she would take her word on anything. It was probably Lori's fault for agreeing to help her prepare dinner before she left them both in the woods because she wanted to check on Carl. And tell Shane to meet her in the forest.

"Don't even ask." Juliet said. She sounded exasperated, probably because Amy had dragged her around the forest for over three hours looking for mushrooms, which Juliet had, while Lori was with them, made it plain she didn't like anyway. "Apparently they're good for you and really filling and her sister likes them which means we have to have a million of them for dinner tonight." Lori laughed and took the mushrooms Juliet was carrying and went to sit beside Amy who was beginning to sort out the millions that they had collected. Juliet sat on the floor in front of the two of them, helping even though she had no obligation to. Lori was glad. Juliet had been rather reluctant to help out with anything around camp, mostly because the men very rarely did, but after a while she had just given in and started helping out where she could, though occasionally she still commented on how little the men did around camp. She clearly disliked confrontation though, and would never say it to any of them.

"How do we tell if they're poison?" Amy asked suddenly. Lori shrugged.

"Uh, there's only one sure way I know of." she replied, and Juliet smirked.

"I'm so glad I don't like mushrooms." she said softly, and Lori laughed. It was always a little touch and go with the food these days; most people could barely stomach it, half of it was probably poisonous and even if it wasn't it was hard to cook it properly. Lori missed her fridge, over, and the luxury of shopping around for food. Had she known she might never go in one again, she would have savoured the last trip to Trader Joes.

"Ask Shane when he gets back?" Amy suggested. Lori nodded. If anyone would know it would probably be Shane.

"Yeah, you've got it." she told her. She felt like now would be the right time to make her exit, and even though it was rude, she didn't excuse herself from the girls, simply turned to her son who was stood nearby and then looked over to Dale. "Dale, I'm heading out. Sweetheart, I want you to stay where Dale can see you, okay?" Carl nodded.

"Yes Mom!" he replied, probably eager to go find his friends and play with them while she couldn't make him do schoolwork. She knew it was futile, but she felt like it was one last attempt to keep things as normal as possible for him.

"You too. Don't wander too far. Stay within shouting distance. And if you see anything, holler. I'll come running." Dale said to her, and she turned to the girls who were both grinning, pressing their lips together to try not to laugh.

"Yes Mom." she said softly, and the two sniggered. She liked them both, but they were barely ten years older than some of the kids here. It was hardly possible to have a grown up discussion with Amy, and no point in trying to talk to Juliet properly unless she was away from the group. She was more like their mother than she was a friend. She hoped Jacqui would get back around the same time she came back from seeing Shane so she could have a normal discussion with someone who wasn't either male or half her age.

Rolling her eyes at nothing in particular, Lori headed silently in to the forest, hoping Shane wasn't too mad at her for being late.

Sophia

As her sister sat with Amy sorting out mushrooms, which Sophia knew for a fact she wouldn't eat, Sophia sat by herself. She hadn't felt like joining in with the others kids today. Her mother had asked if she was feeling okay, and she was, it was just that Juliet had been on edge all morning, and she was always like that when she went shooting with Daryl. Sophia intended on following them again, something she wouldn't be able to do quietly if she had to make up some excuse to tell all the other kids when she left. She knew her mother was busy and her father wouldn't notice, so she just had to hope that Juliet didn't see her. She was sure that she hadn't last time; if she had then she hadn't said anything to her yet.

She wasn't sure why she followed them. It was a combination of curiosity, hope that they might include her in the lesson, and the fact that it was the one interesting thing going on around camp.

Juliet was putting her long blonde hair up in a messy bun, keeping it off her neck when he arrived. All the others were too busy in the heat to notice the look the pair shared before she slipped away, following him down the path that lead out of camp. Sophia barely waited a moment before she too went off, hoping her mother would just assume she was down by the lake with the other children, trying to skip stones, swimming, or whatever it was they were actually doing today.

She couldn't see them well but she could hear Juliet in the distance. She was loud on her own and her voice carried quite far. It wasn't long before they were in her sights.

They walked for miles. She knew enough from science class that the sound of a shot carried less through the woods, but it still carried. Juliet wasn't a particularly careful person, but Daryl was obviously mindful about being caught, although from what she'd seen of him, Sophia wondered if he was worried about the repercussions of teaching her, the thought of someone finding out he was doing something nice for her, or just being caught spending more time than necessary with her. Perhaps it was a little of all three.

When they eventually stopped Sophia found a good place to sit to watch them.

"Where do you even get these bullets from? I mean, don't you need them?" she heard her sister ask as he handed her the gun. She held it out, then remembering, brought it back and flicked the safety off it, returning quickly to her previous stance.

"They're mine. I can do what I like with 'em. You only use a few rounds each time, and I gave most to the group anyway. Well, a few. 'F you don't like it you can always stop learning."

"No. A few bullets wasted on training is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I need to learn to defend myself; I cannot rely on the rest of you to have my back forever."

"Sure?" Juliet nodded. Sophia wondered if he wanted her to say yes so he didn't have to do this anymore, though he didn't strike her as someone who would do something if he didn't want to. "'Kay then." He walked to a tree about twenty feet away and carved out a piece of bark, of similar size to a human head. "Aim towards the top."

He stood away as Juliet pointed. Sophia remembered last week he had told her she took too long getting ready, and if she tried that if she was actually being attacked she'd be dead before she even got to shooting whatever was coming at her. Obviously she'd taken heed of and remembered his words, because she shot immediately. The bullet hit the lower half, but she quickly adjusted her aim and hot again, hitting the top half the second time.

"Admit it." Juliet said, sounding rightly proud of herself. For someone who had never held a gun until whenever she had started learning with him, she'd certainly progressed fast. "I'm getting good."

"You're gettin' better." Daryl corrected her, not smiling, but also not looking as exasperated with her as he usually did. Clearly he was glad that however much time he had spent teaching her had not gone to waste. "Won't know if you're good 'til I see how you are with a walkin' target."

"I… I don't wanna seek one out."

"Wasn't suggestin' we did. We don't have to." She looked confused, but through the trees Sophia noticed as Juliet did the slowly moving shape. Sophia froze. Since all this had started she hadn't seen one up close. Now there was one just a few feet away from her, and all she wanted to do was run back to camp, where it was safe. Juliet looked as scared as she did, and she realised that even with everything, Juliet had about as much up close experience with the walkers as she had.

"The noise will attract more. Just shoot it with your crossbow." The terror in her voice was thinly veiled behind something masquerading as reason.

"You were shootin' three seconds ago and you're worried about doin' it again now? Jus' fire. You know I'll get it before it come near you. Now shoot." He said the last part as the walker caught their scent, finally acknowledging them and picking up its pace now that the promise of food was imminent. Sophia watched her sister hold out the gun, able to see her lips moving softly, mouthing silent words before she shot. She missed the first two times, hit it in the chest a third. It was only on the fourth shot that she hit the forehead, bullet making a perfect round hole through the rotten flesh, and the walker fell back. She watched Juliet drop the gun and walk away, not far, just to a tree. She leant against it quietly with her eyes shut. Daryl made no attempt to follow her, but stood waiting, not impatient in the least. Sophia watched her sister take a deep breath before she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"You okay?" It didn't sound like concern, more just something he was obliged to ask, but Juliet looked grateful nonetheless.

"Yeah. Sorry. It's just… The only thing I ever killed before was a bird, and it was half dead already when I found it, so the only reason I did it was to put it out of its misery. I cried then too." Sophia hadn't realised she was crying. She was too far away to see properly. She had always been quite an emotional person; she cried at the most minor of provocations. Sophia was a lot like her in that respect, although she still had time to grow out of it.

"Well, they're already dead. Savin' your own skin's more important than tryin' to save them. They ain't comin' back from that. Might as well put them outta their misery too." She nodded and pushed one strand of hair which had fallen out of the up-do from her face.

"I know. And if it was me I'd want someone to do it. It's just… Hard. I took one taster Philosophy class once because my friend didn't want to be on her own once. All I learnt was that everyone else might not see the same blue as I see, like they might see the sky as being pink but they call that blue and you'll never know because it's not like you can see what they're seeing."

"Sure." Both Sophia and Juliet knew full well that he didn't understand. Sophia didn't really either.

"Anyway, one taster class is not enough for me to be having to think about these moral dilemmas. If I'd know I'd have to answer the question 'If a person dies but then comes back but also wants to eat you and doesn't remember who they are should you kill them or is it technically murder?' I would have taken that instead of English. Fat lot of good knowing Shakespeare quotations does me now."

"Well you said some Shakespeare crap before you shot it, so it must be doin' you some good."

"That wasn't Shakespeare. It wasn't even in English. It was from Dracula. Not even remotely the same thing. I tend to quote things when I need to take my mind off something. Especially that."

Sophia knew it was her favourite book. While she herself was more in to Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, and any other fantasy type thing she could find, she knew Juliet liked to read classic books and that she had read most of them enough that she could quote them without thinking about it. Her favourite term of endearment for Sophia was 'light of all lights' which was from Dracula. She had tried to read it to her once, but it had both unnerved and bored her, and Juliet had sighed and left to go and read it by herself.

"What was it?" Daryl asked her. She looked surprised at his interest.

"It came to mind when it started going faster. When it knew we were here. 'Denn die Todten reiten Schnell'. It means 'For the dead travel fast'." Juliet was so much quieter than usual. Either she wasn't talking at all or she was talking loudly. There was no in between like this. Sophia had never witnessed her so shaken up. "It's stupid but it helped."

"Far as I'm concerned you can say whatever you like before you shoot 'em so long as you do it quickly and hit it without wastin' too many bullets."

"I'll try. I won't need to try as many times next time." she assured him. He nodded.

"Hopefully next time you'll get it in one. Now, d'you wanna keep goin' or would you rather head back to camp?"

"I didn't walk all the way out here for a ten minute lesson. Teach me something else." He thought for a moment before and idea seemed to come to him, and he beckoned her over to him. She complied, the perfect student, and stood waiting.

"Gimme the glasses." he demanded.

"Why? It's not like I ever take them off, and even if I did I'd put them back on before I tried to shoot anything."

"And what if they get broken? You need to learn to shoot without being able to see stuff properly, just in case. You really wanna take the chance." She sighed and shook her head. "Thought not. Give 'em here, I promise not to break 'em." She took them off and pushed the loose strand of hair back from her face again. It was clearly annoying her.

They stayed another hour. He wouldn't let her shoot for a long time, mindful of wasting bullets, worried about being heard by more walkers. It took a while but she managed to hit the target a couple of times, though never where the implied brain was, always a little too low or too high.

Daryl had done his level best not to get annoyed with her. Juliet's eyesight was awful, which he must have realised, and Sophia thought she had done quite well, all things considered. They only stopped because Daryl wanted to start hunting again and go deeper in to the forest. He didn't want her to walk back by herself while it was dark, though they both laughed about that for a reason Sophia didn't understand.

"See you later." Juliet said to him.

"Yeah, see ya. Send my brother out this way if he's back when you get there, okay?"

"I'll be sure to." Sophia knew full well that her sister had no intention of talking to his brother unless she had to, so she probably wouldn't. She watched Juliet walk away and waited until Daryl was gone too before she followed her away. She was feeling quite proud of herself when she lost sight of Juliet. She tried not to worry too much as she kept walking the way that she thought she must have gone, but five minutes later when she still couldn't see her sister, she began to get a little nervous.

Sophia heard something behind her and spun around, looking, seeing nothing. She carried on walking, a little more tentatively. It was only when she felt a little more relaxed that she felt a hand over her mouth, preventing her from screaming.

Sophia felt herself being turned around, hand still clamped over her mouth and she looked up at the grinning girl who had her trapped like that.

"Boo."

Juliet

Juliet let her sister go before she dissolved into a fit of laughter. Sophia just glared at her, which made her laugh even more.

"You scared me!" Sophia exclaimed. Juliet rolled her eyes.

"Well, obviously. That was kinda the point. Serves you right for following me out here. That easily could have been a walker sneaking up on you, or someone who couldn't find any dinner from another camp and was so hungry that they decided the little girl walking through the forest would make a better meal than nothing…"

"Stop it!"

"I'm not even sorry. That's the third time you've followed me out here. Apart from being a blatant invasion of my privacy, you're putting yourself in danger. How am I supposed to explain to Carol if something bad happens to you?" _How am I supposed to live with myself if it does? _"I don't understand why you do it anyway, it's hardly the most interesting thing to watch, me failing to hit a target." Sophia looked down at the ground guiltily. "Hey, look, I'm not mad. And I won't tell Carol because then she'll know what I've been doing and she'll be upset." Sophia nodded and Juliet put an arm around her, and guided her to start walking back to camp again.

"Why are you learning?" Sophia spoke again after what seemed like a long time.

"Because, I want to be able to protect myself if something bad happens. I want to be able to protect you too, and the best way I can do that is by learning to shoot."

"I should learn too."

"You think Carol and Ed are going to let that happen?" Sophia shook her head. "Look, Daryl's never gonna have the patience to teach you, but I'll probably be okay. Just let me work on getting better and in a couple of weeks I can try and teach you some stuff." Juliet didn't mention that she had no idea where to find a gun, or bullets that anyone would be willing to part with while she taught a twelve year old with hand-eye coordination so bad she could barely catch a basketball being thrown to her from three feet away how to shoot.

"Okay!" Sophia said brightly. Her face turned immediately more solemn. "But I don't want to shoot walkers. Not like you did today."

"I didn't want to shoot it." Juliet said quietly, not meeting her eyes. "If you hadn't been there I probably wouldn't have been able to, but you were, and I was so worried that it might walk past us and get to you that I had to. My first lesson, Daryl tried to get me to shoot them and I couldn't. Today was the first time I was even able to pull the trigger while I was aiming at one of them. Guess my moral code went out the window. I mean, I kept telling myself they weren't people but it's still hard to raise a gun to something which looks human. But you have to, Sophia. If I teach you, that'll be why I'm teaching you, so you can defend yourself. One day someone with a gun and experience might not be around and then you have two choices, you protect yourself or you die. That's just how it is."

"Maybe everything will go back to normal before then." Sophia said hopefully. Juliet said nothing to her; hope was powerful and it kept people going. Juliet was a realist. She knew there was likely no hope of things going back any time soon, if they ever did. She wasn't going to tell a twelve year old that though. Sophia needed her hope. Luckily, her sister didn't press Juliet for an opinion, and the pair continued walking in silence for a while before Sophia spoke again. She didn't mind. It was like having Amy with her, except Sophia would probably be of more use in a crisis than Amy would have been.

"Hey, Juliet?"

"Yeah?"

"How did you get him to teach you anyway?"

"What, you mean how did I get him to agree?" Sophia nodded. "I didn't. I was out by myself a few weeks ago and he saw me and asked why I didn't have a gun. I told him it would be useless because I had no idea how to hold one, let alone shoot one and begrudgingly he offered to show me and it ended up becoming a regular occurrence. He doesn't like it, I know it interrupts his hunting or brooding or whatever it is he does out here, but I think if it comes to it he'd rather the group had a few more capable shooters than not do it at all. The only reason it's me and not someone else is because he saw me being useless before any of the others. And I think he's kind of used to me now." Juliet told her with a shrug of her shoulders.

"He kinda scared me at first." Sophia admitted.

"Daryl's not that bad, you know that now, right?" Sophia nodded. "I think he acts a lot worse than he is because he likes the rest of us to leave him alone." She wasn't always sure of that. Most of the time, yes, he would obviously rather be somewhere else, but upon occasion, recently even more so, Daryl actually seemed to silently enjoy her company. He probably just liked the change of scenery from just his brother or being alone.

"Juliet, I'm tired." She smiled at her little sister.

"You're twelve, you should be above whining because you have to walk somewhere."

"Well, I'm not."

"C'mon then, it's only another half a mile back to camp, I'll give you a piggyback." Sophia grinned and hopped up on to a log nearby so Juliet could boost her up on to her back. "Fuck, you used to be a lot lighter than this when you were younger." Sophia laughed.

"Well duh, I was like, half my size then. Don't swear or I'll tell Mom."

"Like Carol's going to tell me off for swearing now. She'll probably just tell you not to repeat it and ask me to stay away from you if I'm going to do bad things like that again. There are worse things than swearing right now. It's therapeutic." Sophia had stopped listening. She rested her head on Juliet's shoulder, and she could tell that her little sister was closing her eyes. "Don't you dare fall asleep, it's hard enough carrying you awake, you can nap back at camp."

"Fine."

It wasn't too long before the pair arrived back at camp. She put Sophia down and let her run off to find Carol. She went to sit with Amy who commented on how long she'd been gone disinterestedly before worrying about how late it was getting and telling her that Andrea wasn't back yet. She'd moved on from preparing the mushrooms now. Juliet saw that Lori was back too, watching Shane and Carl together, and that Jim and Dale were talking about the RV.

"They tried to contact us earlier." Amy said. Juliet assumed she mean the group that was out on the run. "Said they were trapped, but Shane said we couldn't go help."

"It's probably for the best." Juliet attempted to reassure her. "They'll figure their way out of things, the always do. How many times have we had them worrying to us over that same radio about how bad things are?" Practically every time a group was out they radioed the camp, terrified that something bad was imminent, and it never was. The group always made it back. Or at least part of it did. She wasn't going to say that to Amy. No point in getting her any more worried about the way things were going in the city.

"I just… I don't have anyone else. I need her to be okay."

Juliet was about to say something reassuring when an odd noise began to approach the camp. Everyone else seemed to notice it at about the same time she did, and she looked around, confused, meeting a few people's eyes before looking out in to the distance to where the noise seemed to be coming from, frowning before she spoke.

"Anyone else think that sounds a lot like a car alarm?"


	3. Chapter 3

Tell It To The Frogs

Glenn

Glenn could honestly say that he had never had so much fun as driving up the abandoned highway in a red sports car, travelling at over eighty miles per hour. The Vespa he had used for delivering pizzas could suck it. This was a mode of transport superior to all others. Not that there are a lot of things which aren't superior to a Vespa, mind.

After the drive which he would have loved to continue, Glenn arrived at camp. In his mind he was owed a hero's welcome, he had just gotten out of the city alive and saved all the others at the same time. Probably. He got out of the car a little reluctantly, sad to leave it behind and greeted everyone at camp. Most people were looking at him furiously. He remembered the alarm, which during the drive had stopped bothering him so much. Dale told him to turn it off, and as soon as he replied that he didn't know how.

He opened the hood trying to listen to what people were saying to him. All he could hear was the wailing alarm and Amy badgering him about her sister.

"She's okay! She's okay!" He attempted to reassure her as Shane went to the hood of the car to disconnect the battery.

"Is she comin' back?" Amy persisted. Glenn couldn't believe he'd had a crush on this girl when he met her. Amy was nice but she was loud and it felt like his energy drained just from talking to her. Either she was talking at fifty miles an hour, or she wasn't really listening to what was being said to her. Conversations with Amy were not easy tasks.

"Yes!" he assured her again.

"Why isn't she with you? Where is she? She's okay?"

"Amy!" Amy's friend Juliet spoke up. "Glenn said she was fine, she's fine. They're on their way back right now, and they're all fine, right Glenn?" She asked him, fixing her dark blue eyes on him, begging him to just say yes so that none of them had to hear Amy ask again.

"Yes! Everybody's okay. Well, Merle not so much."

"Why, what happened to Merle?" Juliet asked, looking a little worried.

"Do you care?" Amy asked her with one eyebrow raised.

"Not really, but he's a person, if something bad has happened then we should at least be a little sympathetic to that." Juliet reasoned with her.

"Well I won't be sorry if he's gone. We can all sleep a little safer at night if he is."

Juliet looked like she was poised to scold Amy for what she had said – although Glenn was pretty sure she was right – when Shane interrupted their mini argument.

"The hell were you thinking, drivin' this up here?" Glenn shrugged.

"We're probably okay. Nothing seems to have followed him up." Dale reasoned with Shane.

"Not yet." Amy interjected, earning her another look from Juliet. Amy was older than Juliet was but watching them together no-one would be able to tell. They looked about the same age, and Juliet was clearly the more mature of the two. Amy was quite childlike in the way she acted sometimes, which was often endearing but sometimes unnecessary. Glenn assumed the difference came from their families; Juliet was an older sibling and had to set an example to her younger sister, whereas Amy was the baby of her family, and had no reason to act older than she was, or even act her age most of the time. The two, despite the differences in their characters, did seem to be close though.

"Perhaps next time Glenn will think a little more carefully about what he drives, and where." Dale suggested. Glenn nodded, although if the chance came to drive a wailing sports car up the road again he would take it.

"Sorry. I was blinded by the awesomeness of my new car."

"It is a cool car." Juliet agreed with him, and he grinned at her.

"Thank-you. See? Someone appreciates how great it is."

No-one was listening. Everyone had now turned their attention to the truck which was coming up the road that everyone else who hadn't had the chance to drive such an insanely great car had been piled in to. Well. Not Merle.

As families reunited he noticed a few stragglers in the group, people who didn't have anyone else, no-one who was coming back to them. He was one of them, but honestly he didn't mind. He noticed that Juliet was another. He knew she had family in the group because when he'd first met her she'd introduced the little girl with her as her sister, and he assumed the adults Sophia was with were Juliet's parents too. She clearly just wasn't close with them. Lori was knelt comforting her son. They appeared to be a little separate too, although Shane, as usual, was close to them.

"How'd y'all get out of there anyway?" Shane was asking Morales, although Glenn managed to answer first, if only to remind them all that he'd been there too.

"New guy… he got us out."

"New guy?" Shane didn't sound best pleased at the idea that they'd brought someone back, but Glenn didn't know what he'd expected, them to get help from a random stranger and then leave him on the highway for the walkers?

"Yeah, crazy Vato just got into town. Hey, helicopter boy! Come say hello."

The mood changed as soon as the new guy got out of the truck. Lori and her kid looked over, and it was almost like they did a double take. Both looked like they had seen a ghost, someone long dead resurrected, just not in the way that was so typical now.

"Dad!" The kid kept yelling, eventually rushing to him. Both were crying. So was Lori who had now joined them. Glenn had to smile to himself. He'd rescued the guy from the tank. He'd made this happen. Glenn was suddenly very glad that he hadn't left the guy in there, no matter how stupid going in was in the first place.

Once the meet and greet was over, Glenn went to sit with Juliet who was continuing cooking dinner, which had been abandoned by Lori and Amy in favour of them being with their families.

"Need any help?" Glenn offered. He rarely had to do much around camp since he was the go to guy whenever a run needed to be done and everyone agreed that was work enough. Still, he knew that he should try and help out a little, and Juliet seemed a little flustered trying to cook for so many people by herself.

"Yes, I really do." She sounded relieved that he had offered. She'd probably wanted to ask and felt bad about doing so. "Could you just keep an eye on those two pots, stir them occasionally and take them off the heat if they start to boil?" He nodded. He had no idea what she was making, and by the looks of it, neither did she. Amy had probably just given her some vague instruction before running off to talk to her sister.

"Guess it's just us on the outskirts now." Glenn commented. Both of them looked over to the group and Juliet shook her head.

"It's kind of our choice though. Well, it's mine at least."

"Mine too. Kinda. But seeing people like this… Makes me wish I had my family around." Juliet lost the smile she had been wearing and stared down. It was clear that he had struck a nerve, though he had no idea why. He wasn't close enough to her to ask. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." The smile was back and she looked up at him again. "I know most people miss their families. I miss mine, but I kinda considered mine to be my friends – my roommate especially. I keep wondering if she made it out of California. She had family in Oregon so she probably headed up there when all this started. I hope she got there, saw her older brother and his kids again. She was always talking 'bout them. Kept pictures of his sons on our fridge, commented every morning how she needed to get up there and see them and never quite got the chance. Either she couldn't get time off work in our holidays or she didn't have the money. Her brother brought them down once. Sweet kids, black hair, blue eyes all three of them, looked exactly like him, nothing like his wife. You'd swear they were triplet if not for the height difference." She stopped speaking and met his eyes. "It's funny the things I remember so vividly now. Just… Such unimportant things, yet I can't get them outta my head."

"All of it's important. Like Lori always says, it's the memories that keep us going." She said it along with him, grinning widely. "Exactly. I mean, I have no idea if my sisters are okay. I just have to hope they are, that I might get to see them again." Glenn didn't think he would. He knew they were probably either dead or far away by now, but there was still the glimmer of hope that people have when they don't truly know something. He told himself time and again they were dead, but there was that tiny part which kept saying 'but they might not be' and it was to that he held on, and would hold on until he knew for sure one way or the other.

Juliet nodded and quietly went back to dinner. He saw the new guy on his own and waved him over to them. Juliet looked up and smiled; Glenn remembered that she was a little wary around new people, but he figured he'd better make sure the new guy had someone to talk to while his wife and kid were off elsewhere.

"Juliet, meet the new guy. New guy, this is Juliet." Glenn introduced her, and Juliet got up off the ground to shake his hand.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Rick."

"Juliet, obviously. It's nice to have you here. Lori talked about you a lot, I know she and Carl will be just over the moon to know you're okay." She pushed her glasses up her nose where they had slipped a little with her leaning over the pan and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Glenn noticed she fidgeted a lot when she was talking to other people, the way she became seemingly more self-conscious. Seeing her by herself she was never like that.

"Well I hope so. They're both fixin' the tent before they show me it."

"Hopefully they won't be too long. Dinner should be done soon. Lori and Amy were working on it but they both have better things to do so unfortunately you'll have to taste my cooking your first night here. I apologise in advance." Rick laughed, and her weak smile grew a little wider.

"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think."

"Glenn, tell him."

"It's pretty bad." Juliet laughed and elbowed him in the ribs lightly, though he groaned and pretended to be in real pain, to which she rolled her eyes.

"Shut up. You're meant to reassure me and tell me what a wonderful cook I am and assure him that there is no better chef for his first night here."

"I'm not going to lie to the new guy."

"I swear, next time I have to do your laundry I'm going to put holes in all your shirts if you keep this up, and you know I'm not kidding." She did sounds serious, but Juliet was nice. He was at least sixty percent sure that she wouldn't do anything too bad to him, or his clothes. The two watched as Lori and Carl emerged from their tent and began to head over to the group of them. Rick looked at the pair and grinned, still clearly elated that he had found his family after such a long separation. New friends were quite rightly not a priority yet.

"Well I better go. I'll see you two at dinner. Nice to meet you, Juliet."

"Nice to meet you too." Juliet knelt back down next to Glenn, and carried on cooking in silence as Rick walked away, embracing his son again when he met them. "They're sweet." Glenn murmured in agreement.

Dinner was served just as the sun was setting, and everyone sat around the campfire. In the middle of a conversation about Call of Duty with her, and trying not to let on that she was clearly a lot better at it than him, Glenn sat with Juliet. He wondered if that might have bothered her friend Amy, but she seemed happy enough just to be with her older sister, grinning at Juliet as she walked over and giving her no other greeting.

They listened as Rick talked about how it felt to wake up. Glenn had been terrified enough as it happened, but at least then it came in stages. Somehow that made it easier to process. Waking up from a coma and being thrown in to all of this must have been terrible.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane." Rick said, turning to his best friend, the man who had saved his wife and his child. "I can't begin to express it."

"There go those words falling short again. Paltry things." Dale said, shaking his head. Juliet grinned.

"Not if you remember the right quotes!" she said, and everyone laughed. Rarely in the first couple of weeks had Juliet said much in conversations, but occasionally a quiet voice would pipe up with something from a book unrelated to any situation and manage to have remembered a quote which perfectly captured the moment.

Glenn watched Shane quietly excuse himself and go over to Carol, Ed, and Sophia who were sitting on their own. Juliet didn't notice, either that or she didn't care.

Juliet flinched beside him as she heard Ed yell at Carol. She was listening. Her eyes rested on the small fire they had going and glazed over a little. There was no use talking or trying to comfort her; she had managed to take herself far away from it all, and bringing her back by speaking to her seemed cruel when clearly she wanted nothing less than to listen to them.

Shane

As soon as Shane sat back down with their group though, she looked up and the pair exchanged a look of mutual understanding. Neither smiled, but Juliet looked grateful. She folded her arms over herself and clutched the sides of her shirt. After a minute or so of watching her intently, Shane came over and handed her his jacket. She looked reluctant to take it, but as though she remembered suddenly how cold she was so took it and put in on. Glenn had left her now to go and speak to other people. He wasn't one to stick around someone quiet for long. Shane didn't mind. He liked Juliet, and he didn't really like seeing anyone by themselves. He knew she was quiet, but he seemed to have managed that pretty well. They were probably as close to friends as they were going to get now.

"Keep it. I have others. You don't." Shane said to her.

"Thank you." Juliet sounded genuinely grateful. "If I'd have known about the coming apocalypse I would have packed for camping out instead of shopping and nights out."

"Lori will lend you some stuff when it gets colder. 'Til then that should help a little. You should've asked one of the guys going on runs to try and find you somethin'."

"I didn't want to be any trouble; they have enough of a job finding food."

"Better to inconvenience us once than to cause us a shitload of inconvenience later when you get sick and need medicine and care." Shane reasoned with her. "Ask Glenn the next time he goes in to the city, you two seem friendly. He won't mind."

"Okay."

His attention was focussed firmly on anything but Lori. He couldn't stand the looks of disdain she would shoot him every time Rick looked away. He needed to explain himself to her, explain how he had only lied so she would leave with him because it was what Rick would have wanted, and he would have died anyway, or so Shane had thought. Apparently he was tougher than anyone else in his situation would have been. He needed to tell Lori that he had never meant for anything to happen between them, that he had never thought of her like that until after everything had happened. Shane doubted though that she would ever let him near enough to her to say his peace.

One by one most of the people around the small campfire retreated to their tents. He didn't – It was his watch and even if it hadn't been, he wasn't tired anyway.

Shane noticed that Juliet didn't go to bed either. She actually rarely slept, as he saw it, waiting usually until specific people were on watch before she did. The first week he couldn't remember her sleeping at all when it was dark, though he remembered in the afternoons if she had nothing better to do then she would sleep.

Her eyes never met his. She watched her family, as her mother led her little sister in to bed before coming out again, sitting there until her husband let her go in to the tent.

"You sleep through the day sometimes." Shane said suddenly. Juliet looked up at him questioningly and smiled.

"'What hath night to do with sleep?'" she said with a small smile. "John Milton. I like it. I've been thinking it a lot recently." Shane, who was actually very well read and usually recognised the little quotes she inserted in to her speech, hadn't heard that one. He'd never actually gotten around to reading John Milton, although people were always telling him to. His ex-fiancée Anna had loved Paradise Lost and kept telling him to read it. They'd broken up by the time he finished the book he was reading and had time to ask her for it. "What are you getting at?"

"I just wanted to ask why you don't sleep sometimes?" There was no-one else around as he asked her.

"Sometimes I'm just not tired, like tonight. Then other times… I just don't trust a lot of people round here yet, that's all. I don't trust them to keep us all safe if something bad happens. First couple of weeks there were no exceptions, now there's you, Andrea if she takes watch, and Daryl too on the rare occasion he comes over here."

"You trust that guy and not someone like Dale?"

"I trust his survival instinct. I trust that he's not just gonna fall asleep out here or freak out and get killed by any walker which might make its way up here. I trust that he wouldn't just give in and let the rest of us sleep while we died because we might be better off like that."

"And you don't think any of that about Dale?"

"I don't know Dale well enough to determine any of that."

"Your choice I suppose. Personally, I trust that guy about as far as I could throw him, and his hick brother even less. It's a godsend that T-Dog dropped that key and left him stuck on that roof. We're all better off without him."

"Maybe. I can't speak for Merle, I had one conversation with the guy before I decided it was probably better just to stay outta his way, but I think Daryl just likes being by himself. I don't think he's a bad person, not like his brother."

"You've spent enough time with him to form an opinion like that?"

"Yes, but I'd probably have formed it even if I hadn't. I'm usually quite a good judge of character, though obviously I'm wrong sometimes. I don't think I am here though."

"Why are you spendin' any more time than necessary with him?"

"Amy and I go on walks in the forest. We see him out there all the time." It was the kind of brush off answer that had clearly been rehearsed in her head from the moment the conversation turned to him, probably half true but not the whole story. He saw no reason for her not to tell him everything so he assumed he was just imagining there was more to it. "I'm actually gonna head to bed now. Have a fun watch." He thought for a moment she was being serious. Her voice was too soft to be sarcastic, but she was trying nonetheless.

"I'm sure I will. I'll wake you up if we're about to die imminently." She laughed.

"I appreciate it. See you tomorrow."

"I'm pretty sure it's after midnight already."

"Well then, I'll see you later today, happy now? God, you're so finicky." He saw her roll her eyes before she walked away back to his tent, and he smiled to himself before it faded instantaneously. Now the conversation had died and he had been left alone with his thoughts, which meant that Lori was creeping back in to his head. He wanted nothing more than to forget her, to be happy that his best friend was alive and that Carl had his Dad back but he couldn't be. It was like Lori had managed to erase everything that had happened between them in the last couple of months in a few seconds, yet for him it still lingered in the air, haunting him and his every thought.

God help him, he loved her.

Juliet

After what had turned in to a very pleasant evening, first speaking with Glenn and then her first proper conversation with Shane, plus a new addition to the group who seemed nice and already helpful, Juliet awoke for once well rested and in a good mood. It was early, and she silently met her mother, Jacqui, Lori and Amy and went down to the lake to help them with the laundry. It seemed to pile up every day, and it was near impossible to keep on top of. Still, they did a pretty good job, and when they went back they had what was left from the night before for breakfast.

"See, I told you there was gonna be too much food." Lori said to Amy, shaking her head.

"Who cares? We get to eat two meals. Stop complainin'." Amy said, happily taking a forkful of Lori's now she had finished her own.

"I'll save some for Rick." Lori said, giving Amy a glare as she looked down guiltily.

"Good idea." Jacqui said.

"You think it'll be hot today?" Juliet asked suddenly. It was clear to everyone that she hadn't been listening, and Jacqui and Lori exchanged small smiles.

"It's Georgia. It's summer. Yes is a pretty safe bet." Jacqui replied.

"I mean hotter than usual." Juliet corrected herself. "It feels warmer than normal this morning."

"Yeah, I think it might be." Lori said with a shrug of her shoulders. "Does it matter?"

"You think there'll be much work to do?" Juliet ignored her question.

"Just another load of laundry, we'll get it finished in an hour or so if I can get Andrea to help, and a few of the others. They won't mind." Amy told her. "Why?"

"I am so sick of trousers that don't fit me and being too hot in jeans. I'm changing in to one of my dresses. I don't care anymore." Juliet announced.

"Lend me one?" Amy asked. She nodded.

"Sure. Let's go change now, okay?"

The two got up and went to Juliet's tent. She had her suitcase set up outside it, and thought once again how glad she was that she hadn't unpacked it at her parents' house. She had one pair of her own jeans and a couple of t-shirts. The rest of her luggage was composed of dresses, some long, others a little shorter, none appropriate for walking around in the woods during the apocalypse. If it was hot though, her and Amy would forsake their walk and just stay around camp, and she didn't care if it got wet in the lake. She just wanted something cool to wear.

They changed in her tent one after another and went back to the other women who then began to dissipate to take care of other things before they went to do the laundry. Amy and Juliet simply saw this as prime sunbathing time; no-one had given them anything to do and Lori could come and yell at them if their help was needed. It was too hot to be working.

Andrea came over and joined them after a while, commenting on how much she wished she was their size so she could fit Juliet's clothes as well.

"If you like you can rake through and see if there's anything."

"Thank you, but since we're gonna go fishing later I'll pass. Next really hot day though I'll definitely take you up on that."

"Crap!" Amy exclaimed. "I forgot about the fishing."

"As I remember it Dad took you fishing in a mini-skirt once." Andrea said, and Amy grinned. "I think you'll manage in the dress."

"You're right. I'm just so much better at it than you that I could fish in anything and still catch more of them than you ever could." Amy teased her, and Andrea laughed and elbowed her in the ribs. Amy squealed and pushed her away.

"Wanna bet, little sis?"

"We don't have anything to bet with, or I'd take you up on that."

"How about I do all your work for a week if you catch more than me, and you do all mine for a week if I get more than you?" Andrea suggested.

"Sounds like a fair bet to me." Juliet said, and Andrea smiled at her, though Amy looked worried. "Doubting your abilities, Amy?" she asked her. Amy was silent for a moment before she grinned knowingly and shook her head.

"Not at all. In fact, I think we should make it a month, that's how sure I am that I'm gonna win."

"Ooh, fighting talk kid. Sure. You're on."

If nothing else, Juliet was just glad that they were both competitive enough that this would mean they caught a load more fish than they would have if they weren't competing. The camp was going to eat well tonight.

"Juliet could come with us, right?" Amy asked her older sister.

"Yeah of course you could, if you want to. I think it's a pretty big boat that Dale's got." Unlike Amy, Andrea actually spoke to Juliet. She was grateful but she had literally never been fishing in her life and wasn't sure she'd be too much help if they took her along with them.

"I don't know how, but thank you for the offer."

"Maybe not today, but if we're gonna be here a while we could take you out on the water if we have a free day sometime, teach you how to catch something. It's a useful skill to have, especially now we actually have to be good at it to eat. You don't have to, obviously." Andrea said. Juliet smiled and nodded excitedly.

"I'd love to learn. I want to be able to do more than the washing around here."

Andrea was poised to speak, probably some annoyed comment about how little the men did around the camp, but before she could a piercing scream rang out around camp. Juliet was the first to get up, running quickly in the direction it was coming from, managing to maneuverer herself in her dress very well.

She saw the walker bent over and eating the deer, half its internal organs spilled out over the dirt. It was something of a morbid curiosity that meant she didn't look away, but kept her eyes fixed on it and the deer. She came out of the slight trance she had fallen in to when Dale, from behind her, cut its head off quickly. She flinched and looked at him.

"It's the first one we've had up here." Dale seemed to be talking to Rick. "They never come this far up the mountain."

"Well, they're running out of food in the city, that's what." Jim said.

"It was always gonna start happening. Everyone leaves, sooner or later they start going where there's food. You think more will follow it?" Juliet asked. No-one looked sure how to answer her question, and she looked down to the floor.

With the snap of a few twigs and branches, she watched as Daryl emerged in front of the group from the woods behind him. He looked upset about the deer. Juliet wondered if it was the same one he had been tracking a couple of days before when she and Amy had seen him out in the woods near to camp, or if he'd caught and eaten that one already and this was a different one.

"Oh, Jesus." Dale said under his breath. Most people standing there were probably thinking the same.

"Son of a bitch. That's my deer!" Daryl exclaimed. "Look at it. All gnawed on by this… filthy, disease-bearin', motherless poxy bastard!" He kicked at the carcass of the walker.

"Better the deer than one of us lying there being eaten." Juliet commented under her breath. She knew from the glare she received that he had heard her, although everyone apart from Daryl murmured in agreement.

"I've been trackin' this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think? Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

"I would not risk that." Shane said, and Juliet shook her head before she spoke.

"Yeah… No. None of us are gonna eat that." Daryl sighed.

"That's a damn shame. I got some squirrel… about a dozen or so. That'll have to do." Although she had been rather against eating squirrels for the first few weeks, they now seemed to make up a large part of Juliet's diet, and with little else on offer she had to admit that there was a lot worse they could be forced to eat. They could be left with just mushrooms.

Before anything else could be said, the head of the walker began to move, teeth and jaw snapping at air, decapitated or not clearly still able to smell all the potential food that was standing around it. Again, Juliet watched it curiously.

"Oh god." Amy said quietly from a little way back. Clearly she wasn't as interested or comfortable with it as Juliet was. Perhaps even killing just one of them the day before had desensitised her a little to them. It wasn't a bad thing in her opinion, to be okay with killing them.

"Come on, people. What the hell?" He said people but he was looking at her. He'd been telling her about killing them, it had obviously annoyed him that she hadn't picked up on the fact Dale had killed it wrong. Honestly, she hadn't realised that beheading it wouldn't do the trick. Daryl shot it suddenly with one of his arrows. "It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing?" She thought about making a snide remark about knowing how to speak English, but since she didn't want an arrow in her head too she thought the better of it.

"Come on, let's just go back." Shane suggested, though it was treated like an order by everyone, even Daryl, who trooped along back to camp with them.

"What's with the dress?" he asked her. "Ain't gonna be able to run very far in that when a walker attacks you."

"I ran up there just fine, and it's hot. I'm sick of boiling in jeans. I'm wearing something weather appropriate today instead of terrain appropriate." Juliet replied as she tied her hair back to keep it off her face.

"Whatever." They arrived back and he left her. She wandered over to Amy. "Merle! Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel! Let's stew 'em up." Daryl was yelling. Juliet felt bad immediately, having forgotten with everything that Merle hadn't made it back the night before. Daryl was not going to be happy about the absence of his brother in camp, and even less happy when he learnt exactly why Merle wasn't there.

"Shit, Daryl, I would have found you last night but you were out hunting…" Juliet said quietly. He frowned at her when Shane came over and rested a hand on her shoulder.

"I got this, Juliet, don't worry about it." She smiled at him, but stayed put. She wasn't sure, but she guessed at least that Daryl might be less likely to attack him if she was stood there too. Of course her estimation of that could be entirely wrong and he might do it regardless. "Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you."

"What the fuck is this?" Daryl asked, eyes fixed on the pair of them. Juliet couldn't quite meet his eyes.

"There was a… There was a problem in Atlanta."

"He dead?"

"As good as." Juliet muttered, loud enough for only Shane to hear. She might not have liked Merle but she did not agree with leaving some guy handcuffed to a roof on top of a building full of walkers to either get eaten or die of thirst or starvation. That somehow seemed worse than just killing him straight off. At least then it would have been quick.

"We're not sure." Shane said with a warning glance in her direction. She pretended not to notice.

"He either is or he ain't!"

"No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it." Juliet hadn't actually realised that Rick had gravitated towards them in all of this. Daryl sneered and gave him a look up and down. He had probably already decided to dislike the new guy.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes, you got something you want to tell me?" Daryl did not look happy that they had brought this guy back and not his brother.

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there." Juliet was pretty sure Merle hadn't appreciated Rick trying to take charge. She wondered if the others had minded or if they had been so out of their depth with the whole situation that they welcomed his leadership.

"Hold on. Let me process this. You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there?"

"Brightside - he's not dead. Yet." Again it was loud enough only for Shane to hear her, but this time he elbowed her lightly. The snide comments probably weren't all that helpful.

"Yeah." Rick said. He sounded a little ashamed. Daryl clearly didn't care. He lunged for Rick angrily, met by a shove away. T-Dog, from a little way off shouted something about a knife just as Daryl pulled it out, only to be put in to a chokehold by Shane. Juliet watched, horrified, convinced that one or the other of them was certain to end this dead. Neither were forces to be reckoned with, but given the anger and obvious adrenaline, her money would be on Daryl to win. The chokehold didn't exactly work to his advantage though.

"Okay. Okay." Shane was doing his best to calm him.

"You'd best let me go!"

"Shane, just take the knife and let him go." Juliet attempted as far as possible to be reasonable, even though admittedly the whole thing scared her. Spend enough time around the dead walking and you forget how dangerous the living can be, she realised.

"Nah, I think it's better if I don't."

"Choke hold's illegal." Daryl managed to say.

"You can file a complaint." She managed not to laugh, but for someone who laughed at everything, especially at time when it was utterly inappropriate, it was a struggle. "Come on, man. We'll keep this up all day."

"Shane, you're not helping by provoking him." Daryl was still struggling in the hold Shane had on him and Shane shrugged, not loosening his grip at all. Juliet looked at Rick pleadingly. Her bet had shifted now from Daryl to Shane. There was no way Daryl was getting out of that unless Shane wanted him to, and right now he looked like he'd rather suffocate the other man than let him loose while he still might be a danger to everyone in camp.

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic." Rick said, and she gave him a small, grateful smile. "Do you think we can manage that?" Daryl was still struggling, fuming with rage. "Do you think we can manage that?" Rick repeated.

"Hmm?" Shane prompted him. Daryl looked at her. Any attempt to reason with him now from her probably wouldn't help. He'd make his own decision and any further input would probably hinder the discussion.

"Mmm. Yeah." Daryl agreed unhappily. Shane let him go, and he took in a breath of air.

"What I did was not on a whim." Rick immediately began to explain himself. "Your brother does not work and play well with others." Daryl probably thought the better of arguing with that, because he was not blind to his brothers faults. Obviously this was not a part of his character that Daryl had managed to completely overlook.

"It's not Rick's fault. I had the key. I dropped it." T-Dog was closer now, willing to chip in since it had kind of been his fault that Merle was stuck up there, and not just brought home in handcuffs.

"You couldn't pick it up?"

"Well, I dropped it in a drain." T-Dog said, looking down. He really hadn't helped himself with that one.

"If that's supposed to make me feel better, it don't."

"Well, maybe this will. Look, I chained the door to the roof… So the geeks couldn't get at him… With a padlock. It's gotta count for something."

"He's probably still alive then, right?" Juliet asked. T-Dog nodded.

"He's only been up there a night, not enough time to die of thirst, even in this heat. We could take some tools, go help him…"

"Wait a minute, are you sure the walkers couldn't get to him?" Shane asked. "Because if there's even the chance they could have, then you can't go. It's bad enough going in to the city when it's necessary, let alone to get some piece of shit like Merle." Shane seemed to have forgotten that his very angry brother was stood not four feet away from him.

"Shane, he's a human being. We can't leave him like that…" Juliet protested, and Rick nodded.

"She's right. Bad person or not that inhumane, leaving him chained there like a dog."

"Hell with all y'all!" Daryl was clearly bored of listening to them all talking like he wasn't there. "Just tell me where he is so that I can go get him."

"Rick can show you. Isn't that right?" Lori suddenly chimed in. Juliet hadn't even realised that she was listening, although from all the carrying on, the whole camp had probably overheard most of what was going on.

"I'm going back."

This was obviously not what Lori wanted to hear. She glared at her husband and stormed off. Juliet guessed she meant that Rick could just tell him, give him a set of directions, and send Daryl on his way, but she was on Rick's side here. It was all his fault in the first place, so clearly he felt some responsibility for what happened to Merle and wanted to help out, and regardless of that, letting Daryl go in to Atlanta on his own was a suicide mission.

"Great. Hurry the hell up. I don't wanna leave him up there any longer. He ain't exactly gonna be happy to see you." Daryl said to Rick. To his credit, Rick just nodded, thinking the better of starting another argument with him.

Rick went off to change, and Juliet sat down by herself, feeling a little exhausted by all the arguing that had been going on.

"You think I should go?" T-Dog asked. He had appeared sat next to her, and there had been no-one else close enough to ask. She shrugged and looked at him.

"I think you dropped the key. I think it would be a lot better if you went and at least tried to make it right, or at least offered. I think you need to take responsibility like Rick is trying to. And I think that you already made your mind up to go but you don't wanna piss Shane off by saying you want to help them."

"You think too much." T-Dog said with a frown, and she grinned.

"I know. Stay safe out there, okay?"

"Nice to know at least one person's gonna worry about me while I'm out there potentially getting killed."

"Well, me and Jacqui. She's your friend."

"I suppose so. Better go tell them I'm tagging along. Let Daryl yell about it for a while before we need to leave." Juliet laughed and watched him go over to tell the little group that had gathered that he was going with them.

She sat by herself for a little while reading. The women had decided laundry could wait until everyone had left and all the excitement in camp had died down a little, so she was free to spend what was left of the morning however she liked, and re-reading Rebecca for the millionth time seemed a good place to start. It had been her favourite book since she first read it at fourteen, and she was incredibly thankful that she had thought to pack it in her case when she went to visit her family. She couldn't imagine not having it with her.

"What're you doin'?" Juliet looked up as her light was blocked out, and blinked, adjusting to the lack of brightness. Daryl stood there with his arms folded.

"Cartwheels. Don't let the book fool you." Getting up early plus all the exhausting arguments meant that despite her earlier good mood she was now feeling snarky and sarcastic and she was perfectly willing to take that out on anyone who annoyed her even a little, even someone who it was probably best not to piss off in their current mood, like Daryl.

"I meant, why the fuck aren't you changed yet?"

"Why would I be changing?"

"You're coming, right?"

"I don't remember saying I was, or even thinking about the possibility that I might, so no, I'm not coming."

"Yeah you are." She raised one eyebrow at him. "You need experience out there, where you actually have somethin' to lose. You ain't gonna learn shit just killin' the occasional one out there in the damn woods." Annoyingly, what he was saying made sense. "Look, I'll have your back. You won't get killed, but it'd do you good." She was shocked that he was actually being reasonable, especially in his current state of mind.

"Fine, I'll come." He didn't smile, but he looked somewhat pleased. She knew her tone didn't sound as brush-off as she might like it to and that she was giving away the fact that she was excited, if a little nervous, about her first time going in to the city.

She got up to go to her tent and smiled as Shane wandered over to the pair of them.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah, she's fine." Daryl answered for her, and she managed to refrain from rolling her eyes. "We were just talkin' bout how Juliet's gonna come with us to get my brother." Shane looked at her and actually laughed, shaking his head.

"No. She's really not."

"Why the hell not?" Daryl asked him.

"Because she has no experience out there, I'm not risking her life for your piece of shit brother, and she has work to do here." Daryl looked just about ready to start another fight with him, but she shook her head.

"Look, it's fine. I'll go on one of the less dangerous runs some other time when I've cleared it with everyone more than ten minutes before I leave. You have three very capable people going with you, I'll just hinder this whole thing and I don't want any of you getting hurt because you're too busy covering me."

"Fine." The look he gave her told her that he wanted her out there, getting real experience as soon as possible. He probably had half a mind to tell Shane she could shoot a gun better than most of the people who went on runs, but he didn't. She flashed him a quick look of gratitude and wished him good luck on his search before she went to find Amy and the other women, who were wandering around camp gathering laundry to do. She watched as the four sped off in the cube van, and hoped that they were successful and that there were no severe casualties.

Lori had been excused from having to do her work. Apparently worrying about her husband was reason enough for her to be signed off for the day.

"I'm beginning to question the division of labour here." Jacqui commented. Juliet and Andrea agreed immediately with her. It was pretty much the only topic of discussion between the three of them, how little the men at camp actually did. Shane bossed people about, but Juliet could have done that too, and it wasn't exactly hard work. Ed did fuck all, but Juliet was hardly hopeful that would ever change. Dale and Jim constantly seemed to be trying to fix the RV but it wasn't exactly keeping them going. The other went on runs, which were needed but honestly they happened at most weekly. Surely between them they could have helped with the laundry and cooking once in a while. Daryl was the only one who was constantly helping, they always needed more food, and he was pretty much constantly hunting. "Can someone explain to me how the women wound up doing all the Hattie McDaniel work?"

"The world ended. Didn't you get the memo?" Amy asked jokingly, which earned her a glare from both her sister and her friend.

"The wold ending does not excuse the fact they do nothing to help. In fact, it makes it worse." Juliet said icily. Jacqui and Andrea hummed in agreement.

"It's just the way it is." Carol said quietly. It was the first time she had spoken in the half an hour they had been doing laundry for. She was always careful, especially when her husband was watching her closely like he was, not to say too much about anything.

"Well it shouldn't be." Andrea told her firmly.

"I'm gonna go and get a drink from back at camp, does anyone want anything?" Everyone requested water, apart from Amy who asked for 'any and all snacks' that Juliet could find, and laughing, she walked away from the group. As she walked closer to the path up to camp, Juliet watched the brief altercation between Lori and Shane, as Lori marched her son away from him and back up to camp. By the time she arrived at him, it was over, and Shane sat by himself looking at the water.

"Are you okay?" she asked tentatively.

"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry 'bout me. Look, I'm sorry I stopped you from goin' in to the city today. I just think, if you're gonna risk your life, don't do it for someone like that. Go in because we need supplies or something, not for that. I don't have a problem with you going in so long as someone's there who can look after you. I'll ask Rick next time you want to go, okay?" Shane explained himself, and she smiled brightly and nodded at him.

"Thank you. I just… I wanna help out by doing something other than laundry."

"I know. Hell, I would too. I just…" Shane stopped, eyes fixed on where a loud racket was coming from. Juliet turned, watching Ed arguing with the women. She started to make her way over but Shane put a hand on her arm and shook his head. "Stay here. I got this." He sounded quite calm, but he looked about ready to blow a gasket. Juliet sat down, not sure what else to do, watching worriedly as Ed slapped Carol around the face. She stood, ready to go over and intervene no matter how little it would have helped when Shane pounced on the guy, pulling him off Carol, flooring him immediately.

Shane pummelled the other man in to the ground. Ed might have been bigger than him, but it was all fat, and Shane had muscle and strength on his side. He kept him pinned to the ground, beating him bloody. Juliet just watched on in horror.

She heard the commotion but could make out nothing specific. All she saw was Shane getting up eventually, leaving him alive, but just barely. She watched Carol bent over her husband's body, sobbing and apologising. It was ringing in her ears.

Shane walked past her, and she went after him.

"Shane!" she yelled. He stopped in his tracks, as though remembering he had been speaking to her before all of that. He turned and looked at her.

"You gonna yell at me for beating the crap outta that guy? Cry like your Mom?"

"She should be cheering." Juliet said coldly. "He deserved that, and if I was strong enough to keep him down like you did, I would have done it myself a long time ago." Thanking him seemed too odd, but she hoped he knew she was grateful, not just because Ed deserved it, but because, for all she had done, Carol didn't deserve to be beaten in front of women she knew. Ed had no shame about what an abusive bastard he was. "You should have kept hitting him." She didn't look sorry that she had said it, a little surprised more than anything.

"Next time, I will." He used exactly the same tone she did, cold, almost dissociated from what had just happened. It made sense for him; Ed meant nothing to him. He was just a guy who hit his wife who deserved to be punished from where Shane was sat. It should have been more complicated for her, but it wasn't. There was no love for her father anywhere in her mind, unlike her mother, where try as she might to tell herself she hated her, she could never quite bring herself to do so fully. Her mother, unlike Ed, for all that had passed between them, did care about her. Ed never had, and never would, and she didn't care, because she felt the same about him, perhaps with a little more loathing thrown in to the mix for good measure. "You know, you should probably ask someone to bandage your hand for you; you probably broke some bone. It looked like there was a lot of force behind those punches." She wondered if all the anger had been to do with Ed, or if it had been pent up from before that. Juliet wondered what exactly had passed between him and Lori before she had gone over.

Finding she had nothing left to say to Shane, and exhausted, Juliet walked past him and back to camp to get the drink she had promised herself. She would wait until she knew Ed was gone from the lakeside before she took anything down to the others. She didn't want to see him again after that.


	4. Chapter 4

Vatos

Jacqui

Afternoon had approached quickly, and with all the work done around camp and since Shane hadn't come up with anything more for them to do yet, Jacqui had taken a blanket down to the side of the lake as it was cooler there than in camp with all the others. The two youngest girls had decided to take a swim in the lake, but Amy had left as soon as Andrea called her up to camp. Jacqui, meanwhile, had been tasked with looking after Juliet's glasses and ensuring they didn't get broken. Andrea and Amy had passed a while later, carrying Dale's boat. He hadn't been far behind them, worried that they might hurt themselves carrying it, but both were more than capable of doing so.

As they had rowed towards the middle Jacqui had watched as Juliet had swum alongside them, making idle chit chat before she got tired and swum back to shore. She was lying in the sun now on one of the large rocks by the water, glad she had remembered to bring her book down. Deciding she was bored on her own, but currently not possessing the will to go back up to camp to find Lori to talk to, Jacqui had gone over to Juliet.

"I'm so glad Shane's not making us work this afternoon." Juliet looked up from her book and smiled at her, and nodded, folding her page and laying the book by her side.

"Well, we're on top of things around here, and we'll pass out if we do too much in this heat."

"I miss my air conditioning."

"I miss having ice in my drinks." Jacqui hummed in agreement, taking the beginning of a conversation to mean that she could sit down with her. Juliet didn't seem to mind. The younger girl looked quite glad of the company actually.

"And in winter we'll be complaining because we miss our central heating and hot drinks. I was just thinking about my coffee maker earlier. I never used to care how hot it was, I'd have coffee every morning regardless of whether or not I nearly melted from adding to the heat by just being in close proximity to a hot drink. I just couldn't force myself to get up without the promise of an espresso before I had to do anything productive."

"I'm just the same. Me and my roommate used to get up every morning and go to the flat next door and flirt horrendously with the guys that lived there so they'd let us use their nice coffee machine because we were too poor to afford our own."

"You were in college right?" Juliet nodded.

"Yeah. Waitressing to make a little money on the side, but it was hardly a lucrative profession. I had dreams of being this big high-flying magazine editor one day, jetting all over the world to meet important people and writing my own books, the kind that everyone's read, you know? Guess all that hard work was for nothing though."

"I know what you mean. I worked damn hard at my job, and it's all for nothing now. No promotion for all my hard work, no moving on to bigger or better things. I may as well have just done a half-assed job the whole time I worked there, it wouldn't make any difference now."

"But I bet if neither of us had worked hard this never would have happened. Sods law, right?" Jacqui smiled at her, and shrugged.

"I think there might have been more of a cause than just the two of us. I think if it was just us though, we both have quite a bit to answer for." Juliet chuckled, running a hand back through her hair, which was dry on the top but with wet tips from where it had dragged in the water as she had swum earlier.

"Yeah, just the complete annihilation of the world. I'm sure everyone would forgive us."

"I'm not so sure about that…"

"Do you ever wonder though? About what really caused this?"

"I did at the start before I realised it doesn't make any difference. We're here, with no equipment or research techniques… There's no way for us to figure it out, and even if we did it's not like we're going to find the cure that everyone keeps assuming exists. Those people, the ones who get bitten are gone, no coming back. You look at them, flesh rotting off their bones… How can anyone believe there's a cure for that?" Jacqui looked at Juliet who was looking down solemnly. "Sorry."

"No, I think that too. There's no cure, and there never will be. The sooner everyone realises that the sooner we can all start to rebuild some kind of lives for ourselves."

"Exactly." Jacqui agreed whole-heartedly with her. The first week of camp everyone had talked excitedly about when they would be rescued and when the cure would be distributed. Some of them, including herself, Shane, and Juliet now she thought back on it, had stayed out of those conversations, not wanting to dampen their hope, but also not wanting to have to lie about what they thought was realistically going to happen. "So, on a brighter note, what are you reading?" Juliet grinned and held up her book so Jacqui could see. "Rebecca is one of my top five favourite books of all time."

"Really?" Juliet sounded excited that she had someone else in camp who read similar things to her. Jacqui knew that Amy preferred films, and she had seen how bookish Juliet was.

"Yeah, I read it a few years ago for the first time. I actually have a first edition. Well, I had a first edition."

"That's awesome, mine's just a standard reprint, but I love it, and it looks old because I've read it a billion times." Jacqui asked her silently with a look if she could pick it up, and Juliet nodded. Immediately she skimmed to her favourite parts of the book. The pages were a little different, but she found the scenes she liked with ease, and Juliet was quite happy just to let her read through them again for a few minutes in silence.

"When you're done reading it through again, could I borrow it? I promise I won't lose it or drop it in the lake." Juliet laughed.

"Of course, and feel free to look through my stuff to see if there are any others you might like to read; I know it gets dull around here and I actually have more books than clothes – there's at least fifteen of them in there. It seemed like a good idea while I was packing because books provide an escape that clothes just don't, but now I'm kind of regretting that fact that all my practical clothes are back in California."

"Coming home was so bad you brought that many books?" Juliet nodded almost unperceivably. "What airline lets you bring that many anyway? Must have cost a small fortune in excess weight."

"Me and a couple of friends from my course took a road trip. We worked out that splitting the gas three ways would be cheaper than flights."

"They came from Georgia too?"

"Hattie was from North Carolina, and Peter was from Virginia. They were travelling on after they dropped me, going to meet each other's parents for the first time. I think he wanted to propose to her actually. I wonder if he ever got the chance."

"Hopefully he did, and they managed to stay safe together." Jacqui said sympathetically. It was always hard when people popped in to your head, wondering if they were alive, dead, if so for how long, if they'd ever come back, if someone had put them down, how many people they might have killed in their new state.

"Even if they'd got stuck in their car they would have been well prepared. Hattie was insanely paranoid so they had like three guns in the trunk and more ammo than we have. Hopefully he knew how to hold a gun as well as she did."

"Maybe it wasn't so bad up North."

"Maybe." Juliet didn't sound hopeful. Jacqui managed to steer the conversation back to books after a few moments of quiet contemplation, and marvelled silently at how quickly her mood changed, or at least appeared to change, as the conversation shifted to a less bleak topic. She wondered how much of Juliet's excitement and happiness was for show and how much of it was real. There always seemed to be an underlying sort of sadness with her, something that could be brought out at the most minor of provocations and seemed to dissipate as soon as she realised it was there again.

"I need to get a drink." Jacqui announced as soon as their conversation died down. "Wanna walk back up with me?" Juliet nodded, and tucking her book under her arm, she got up and the two started walking back.

"Wait up!" They heard coming from behind them, and both turned to see Amy and Andrea hurrying up the path, carrying a huge amount of fish for the camp. Both of them looked proud of what they'd caught, as they rightly should. It was an incredible amount.

"Wow guys, we're gonna eat well tonight!" Juliet gushed. "So, who won the bet?"

"I did, I caught sixteen to her twelve." Amy said proudly. Andrea suddenly looked a lot less happy than she had before.

Amy linked arms with Juliet and the two hurried back up the path to camp, Jacqui and Andrea hot on their heels, neither too bothered about keeping up with the younger pair.

Juliet and Jacqui went to get drinks, taking their time at the buckets of water they kept the drinking water in before they returned to what had rapidly turned in to a very chaotic scene. Most of the camp had headed a little ways up the hill, and were gathered around someone who Jacqui quickly identified as Jim who was stood digging holes, lots of them. He was in the middle of arguing with Shane. Jacqui watched as Juliet quickly made her way over to her little sister before her mother could get to her, holding her close, telling her quietly that it was going to be okay and that she had nothing to worry about.

"Jim, they're not gonna say it so I will." Lori cut in to the argument, hoping perhaps if the others couldn't that she might be able to reason with him. "You're scaring people. You're scaring my son and Carol's daughter." Lori looked over at Juliet who mouthed a thank you to her, still trying to console her younger sister. Jacqui thought for a moment how terrible it must be to be a child in all this, how frightening. She as an adult could barely comprehend it, it must be near impossible for a child to understand what was going on in the world now. As quickly as the thought had come to her, she pushed it out of her head.

"They got nothin' to be scared of. I mean, what the hell, people? I'm out here by myself. Why don't you all just go and leave me the hell alone?" Jim asked.

"Because we're worried about you. You're gonna do some serious harm to yourself if you keep working like this in this heat." Juliet said quietly, stroking one hand soothingly through her little sister's hair. The younger girl had her arms clutched tightly around her, but Juliet didn't seem to mind.

"Juliet's right… It's too hot to be workin' like this." Shane said, giving her a grateful smile. "Why don't you go and get yourself in the shade? Some food maybe. I'll tell you what… maybe in a little bit I'll come out here and help you myself. Jim, just tell me what it's about. Why don't you just go ahead and give me that shovel?"

"Or what?" Jim was still not willing to be reasoned with. Jacqui could see that this was about to go even further downhill momentarily, and honestly she wasn't sure she wanted to watch it, but like the others, she found herself frozen in place, watching the scene playing out in front of her.

"There is no or what." Shane was still attempting to stay calm. "I'm askin' you. I'm comin' to you and I'm askin' you, please. I don't wanna have to take it from you."

"And if I don't, then what? Then you're gonna beat my face in like Ed Peletier, aren't you? Y'all seen his face, huh? What's left of it. See, now that's what happens when someone crosses you." Jacqui pursed her lips. She'd been there. If she'd had strength on her side like Shane did, she would have done exactly the same. Any guy who beat his wife like that deserved to have it taken out on him that way. She had no remorse for what had happened to Ed.

"That was different, Jim." In Jacqui's opinion, and probably most other peoples, Shane had no reason to defend himself.

"You weren't there. Ed was out of control. He was hurtin' his wife." Amy said quietly. Jacqui looked over at Juliet. The girl looked very on edge like she was about to start screaming at him, though whether she wanted to do so because he was scaring her sister or because he didn't agree that Ed deserved the beating he had gotten was debatable. Jacqui reasoned that it was probably a little of both.

"That is their marriage. That is not his. He is not judge and jury. Who voted you king boss, huh?"

"We all did when we realised we couldn't run shit without him." Juliet's voice shook as she spoke. She had let go of Sophia, who was now over with her mother. "Ed deserved everything he got, every bruise, every cut, every punch thrown his way, he deserved. In fact he deserved more, so don't you dare try and use that against Shane, because if your roles had been reversed and it was you down by the lake and not him and you hadn't had the balls to stop what he was doing, none of us would have been able to look you in the eye again." Amy put a hand on her arm and she took a deep breath. "Just give Shane the shovel and stop talking about crap you don't understand." Juliet wasn't known for talking much around camp. A lot of people were just staring at her in awe. For most people, it was the most they'd heard her say. Even Jacqui was staring at her.

While Jim's attention was diverted to the younger girl, and everyone else's for that matter, Shane lunged for the shovel in his hand. Jim attempted to fight back, but Shane had him floored before he could do any harm. Shane shushed him continuously, not responding properly when Jim argued.

"Jim. Jim, nobody's gonna hurt you." Shane promised, still holding him down as he struggled. "You hear me? Shh. Jim, nobody is gonna hurt you, okay?"

"That's a lie." Jim said coldly. Jacqui could tell he was returning to normal and coming to his senses a little. "That's the biggest lie there is. I told that to my wife and my two boys. I said it a hundred times. It didn't matter. They came out of nowhere. There were dozens of 'em. Just pulled 'em right out of my hands. You know, the only reason I got away was 'cause the dead were too busy eating my family." He stopped struggling, defeated.

"I'm gonna let you up now, okay? Then we're gonna get you in the shade, you'll cool off. It'll be okay." Shane loosened his grip on him. Jim staggered to his feet, leaving the shovel that had caused so much trouble in the first place laying on the ground. He wobbled a little, and Shane caught him, propping him up. "Juliet, help me get him in to the shade, yeah?" Juliet nodded and walked over. Both put one of Jims arms round their shoulders and helped him in to a little wooded area. Most people went back to camp, realising the chaos was over now, but Jacqui stayed, as did Lori, Carol, and their children.

The pair helped Jim down by a tree. Jacqui folded her arms.

"You just gonna leave him like that?" she asked disapprovingly. "He's… He's dangerous at the moment."

"Well, what do you suggest?" Shane asked her.

"Tie him up. At least until we know he's okay."

"Jacqui, we can't do that!" Juliet exclaimed. "He seems a lot more like himself now, surely it's inhumane to leave him tied up there." She looked to Shane for help, but the man looked rather conflicted. Jim was exhaustedly leaning against the tree trunk, not caring that he was being discussed without being consulted about what he wanted.

"Juliet, she's right. You want him like that around Sophia again?" She shook her head. "Settled then. Anyone have any rope with them?" Jacqui nodded and untied the knot from her belt and handed it over.

"Never realised it would come in handy." she muttered.

"Juliet, do you mind staying with him?" Shane asked as he knelt beside him, winding the rope around him and the tree. "I'm going to go get him some water so he can cool down, Jacqui, you come with me, okay?" Jacqui nodded.

"Yeah, of course." Juliet immediately sat beside him. Shane started to make his way back down to camp and Jacqui followed him in silence.

"Come on, kids, let's finish up this schoolwork, okay?" Lori said to Sophia and Carl as Jacqui walked past. Neither looked to pleased, obviously not happy about the fact the end of the world had not equalled the end of fractions and complex sentences. Jacqui wondered what the point of it was other than giving them some routine. If it was in the faint hope that the world might return to normal and they didn't want their kids to fall behind in school, then Carol and Lori were clearly delusional. If it was for routine… Well, there were a lot more helpful things they could be doing routinely around camp instead of that.

Jim

Jim felt himself coming around a little, and looked around, seeing immediately the young girl knelt in front of him looking worried.

"Are you feeling okay? I think you blacked out for a little while." she said softly. She placed the back of her hand gently against his forehead. "You're burning up… I think Shane's bringing some water up, he shouldn't be too long." He'd seen her around camp with the little girl… They looked alike so they were probably sisters. He remembered the way she had held the younger girl earlier while he was arguing with Shane. Sisters made more sense than anything else. He couldn't remember either of their names; he'd never really had occasion to talk to either of them. The older girl was barely more than a kid herself, though she had some mouth on her from what he could remember of their interaction a few minutes ago.

"Yeah, I'm doin' okay." He realised he was tied up she looked at him pulling on the ropes.

"I told Shane not to do that, but he seemed to think it was for the best. I can take them off if you want me to, or loosen them at the very least." she offered. Jim shook his head. It was probably best not to get her in to trouble.

"I'm okay. Don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry I snapped at you while you were having your…" The girl stopped, looking lost for words. In all honesty, Jim wasn't too sure what to call it either.

"No, it's okay. I should have left what happened to Ed out of it." It took him a while in his mental state, but he realised now that her and the little girl were Ed's children. Luckily for her she looked a lot like a younger version of her pretty mother, and bore no resemblance to her father, much like the younger girl.

The girl said nothing more, and he saw Shane and Dale making their way up the path. He liked Dale, but he still took issue with Shane and his insistence that he was in charge. As far as Jim could see, he wasn't doing a great job. Better than some people might have done, but Shane was convinced there was no room for improvement in his leadership. It was clear to anyone paying attention, which Jim definitely was, that he could be a hell of a lot better.

"Hey, how's he doin'?" Shane asked the girl.

"Better." she replied, not looking behind her, instead keeping a watchful eye on Jim. I think he passed out for a minute or so after you left, he really needed to cool down." Jim heard what she was saying without outright saying it, that Shane had done the right thing. He knew he would have made himself ill had he carried on.

"Well, at least he's in the shade now." Shane said with a shrug. He was stood in front of him now. "Jim, take some water?" He finally directed what he was saying at Jim.

"All right." Jim said.

"Yeah?" Shane said, happy he was complying with his wishes now. "All right. Here you go, bud." Shane fed him some water since his hands were tied down. The girl still looked unhappy about the fact he was tied up. He was glad at least that some people around camp weren't completely heartless.

"Pour some on my head?" Jim asked him. He wished his hands were free. He understood though. He might do something crazy again and Shane had an obligation to keep safe the kid that trailed after him everywhere.

"Yeah. Coolin' you down, huh?" Shane asked as he obliged with the request. Jim assumed that for him, cooling down was synonymous for going back to a normal state of mind.

"Yeah. How long you gonna keep me like this?"

"Until I don't think that you're a danger to yourself or others. Juliet will look after you, right?" The girl nodded. So that was her name. Jim looked over at Lori and Carol.

"Sorry if I scared your boy and your little girl." He was genuinely apologetic about that. He'd just wanted to dig the holes, not that he could remember why. He hadn't wanted to cause a camp-wide panic, and still didn't entirely understand why it had. He hadn't been doing harm to anyone until Shane tried to make him stop.

"You had sunstroke. Nobody's blamin' you." Lori said nonchalantly.

"You're not scared now, are you?" he asked the little girl. She shook her head.

"No sir." she replied. Jim was glad about this. She seemed like a sweet kid; he didn't want to scare her. She was probably scared enough of older men, what with everything her father clearly did to her mother. Maybe she was still too young to understand that though.

"She's a tough one, aren't you Sophia?" her sister called over. The little girl – Sophia, grinned at her older sister and went back to her work.

"Your mama's right." he said to the young boy. "Sun just cooked my head is all."

"Jim, do you know why you were diggin'? Can you say?" Shane asked him.

"I had a reason. Don't remember. Somethin' I dreamt last night. Your dad was in it. You were too. You were worried about him. Can't remember the rest. You worried about your dad?" Again he directed it at the young boy. Poor kid had just got his dad back only for him to go off on a part rescue, part suicide mission to save a piece of scum worth less than the dirt under their feet.

"They're not back yet." the boy said. Jim assumed this meant yes.

"I'm sure they will be soon." Juliet assured him. "They're all strong, the one who've gone with him, they'll get him out. He'll be okay."

"We don't need to talk about that." Lori said coldly. She was obviously getting annoyed with him again.

"Your dad's a police officer, son. He helps people. Probably just came across some folks needing help, that's all. That man, he is tough as nails. I don't know him well but… I could see it in him. Am I right?"

"Oh yeah." Shane agreed. The boy looked a little more relaxed, his mother thankful that they had assured him his dad would be okay.

"There ain't nothin' gonna stop him from getting back here to you and your mom, I promise you that." Jim added.

"All right." Shane said, having had enough of the conversation, clearly. "Who wants to help me clean some fish, huh?" The kids looked excited, the girl next to him a little disgusted.

"Sweet. Come on, Sophia." the boy exclaimed, and the two ran off, the boy tripping in his hesitation to get back down to camp. Carol hurried after them, not saying a thing to her older daughter.

"Not for you, Juliet?" Shane asked the girl teasingly. She grimaced.

"Jim needs someone with him, remember? Besides, I can enjoy eating them a lot more later if I haven't had to prepare them while they're just dead and not food. Just… Don't leave any fish eyes where I can see them. Please." Juliet begged him. He gave her a wicked grin.

"I'll tell you what, I'll put them in a bucket in your tent, how does that sound?"

"You do that and I swear to God I will get revenge, one way or another." she threatened.

"We'll see. Depends how nice I'm feeling." Shane bid goodbye to both of the women left behind before he headed down to camp after the kids and Carol.

"I'm just gonna go get some more water, Lori, you'll make sure Jim's okay while I'm gone right?" Juliet asked her. Jim thought that was a very nice way of asking her to continue babysitting him that didn't patronise him.

"You got it." Lori said, and Juliet pushed herself off the ground and headed down after the others.

"You should keep your boy close. You should never let him out of your sight." Jim warned Lori. She looked conflicted. "The girl will be back in a minute. Ain't no sense you stayin' up here 'til then. Go watch your son."

Lori left immediately, one last passing glance over her shoulder at him, and Jim settled against the tree again, eyes closed, enjoying the solitude, and trying desperately to remember why he had been digging in the first place.

Carol

Amy and Andrea had decided to cook the fish they had caught for dinner, which meant Carol had little else to do for the afternoon. The ironing was done and they'd powered through all of the laundry already that morning. It was one of the first long periods of time that Carol hadn't had anything to do for. She was keeping half an eye on her youngest daughter as she first helped Shane clean the fish and then started playing with Carl, Eliza and Louis.

"You wanna borrow a book?" Carol heard the soft, recognisable voice from behind her and looked to see her older daughter. She turned away again without replying. "You're not talking to me? That makes a change." Usually it was the other way around.

Until Juliet had called a few weeks before she had come to visit, Carol hadn't heard a word from her since she went to college. She knew that she sent Sophia letters and emailed her occasionally, but if not for that it would have been easy for Carol to start questioning whether she was even still alive or not. She hadn't really understood why Juliet wanted to come to stay with them, a question which had been answered quickly on her first evening home – she hadn't. Sophia had apparently been on the phone to her, crying, telling her how bad things were there, and it had been simply a sense of duty to her younger sister than meant she was there, scoping things out. Carol wondered exactly what Juliet would have done if the world hadn't ended before she got the chance. She wasn't sure she would have been above packing Sophia's things up and marching her over to California with her.

If not for Sophia then the day Juliet had left for college would have been the last time either of her parents heard from her. Ed might not have cared, but to Carol, that hurt, although she knew Juliet had reason enough to hate her.

Carol looked around, scoping out how many people were around. Just the kids, she determined, which meant she could at least try to say her peace with her daughter without the others either interfering or listening in.

"You didn't have to say that earlier. About your father." Carol said, sounding a lot colder than she usually did.

"No, I didn't have to say that, but I did, and I'm not sorry about it. One of us has to teach Sophia that what Ed does is wrong, and if it's not going to be you then I'm more than up for the job." Carol stood and looked her daughter in the eyes. Neither woman was particularly tall, though Carol was still a centimetre or two taller than her daughter.

"It is not your job to tell me how to raise Sophia. I am trying…"

"No, you're not! You are bringing her up in an environment which teaches her that domestic abuse is just something she'll have to put up with in life. Carol, when I came home… It's gotten so much worse since I left. I don't understand… You could have left him. You have friends who'd put you up, your aunt, even just for a few weeks while you got yourself together and found a job, an apartment or something for the two of you."

"I never would have been able to provide for her on my own. I had to stay with him."

"Carol, she's terrified of him. Hell, I hate him for what he did to me and I don't know how to forgive you for letting it happen but what he did to me isn't shit compared to what he does to her. You can ignore it all you want but we both know it's not just the beating with her, is it?"

"Juliet, just stop it! This is none of your business anymore; it hasn't been since you left."

"She is my family too. Of course it's my business. And it's not fair for you to use me leaving against me; I went to college, I was trying to build a life for myself. What, did you expect me to sit there and wait until Sophia could leave to so I could divert some of the violence on to myself?"

"I know you don't think I did, but I tried to protect you both, I really did. I just… I never knew what to do. I still don't. I couldn't leave him when he provided for us all and when he would have just come after me if I did, dragged me home, probably killed me from whatever beating he gave me and risk leaving Sophia alone with him, I couldn't stop him, I wasn't strong enough and if I tried then he made it worse for you, and for me. I couldn't call the police because they would have taken you both away from me, probably separated you, and despite what you might think and whether it was right or wrong, I loved you both and I wasn't going to lose either of you like that. I know I should have tried harder but I didn't know how without making it worse."

Juliet was very quiet for a long time, still just staring at her mother. It was only when her own vision was no longer blurred by tears that she realised Juliet was crying silently. Despite knowing she wouldn't want her to, Carol stepped forward a couple of paces and wrapped her arms around her daughter. She was stiff at first but relaxed after a moment, not putting her arms around Carol but also not pushing her away.

It was a start, at least.

Neither would apologise yet, though there was reason for both to. Carol felt terrible about what Juliet had been put through, what she had to go through again because she was stuck with them now with no way out other than to brave the apocalypse on her own. Juliet had said and done malicious things that it was clear she regretted. Carol felt slightly ashamed though, that it had taken two months of being stuck together like this to catalyse them talking. They had avoided each other as much as possible in the early days, being civil only for the good of Sophia. Carol had watched as Ed went over to her a few times, watched her revert back to the scared ten year old standing in front of her baby sister, both terror and determination in her deep blue eyes. She'd never believe it if Carol told her so, but she was proud of her oldest daughter.

Carol let go of her after a minute or so, and looked at her. Juliet nodded, telling her silently that she was okay and smiled weakly.

"Better go clean up before dinner. I… Yeah. See you." There really wasn't much else she could have said, Carol thought, watching her go back to her tent. She smiled sadly before deciding to go and find Sophia to bring her to dinner.

Sophia was up by herself sitting outside the tent now, not with the other children.

"You okay sweetheart?" she asked her. Sophia nodded.

"I didn't wanna hear you and Juliet arguing, so I came up here."

"We're not arguing anymore, so it's okay for you to come back. Dinner's almost ready. Let's get your dad, okay, and then we can go down and eat those fish that you helped to prepare earlier." Sophia grinned, and Carol took her hand and led her in to the tent.

"Ed, it's us." she said softly. He was lying on his side, and he didn't respond to her. The bruises she could see were a multitude of colours. Juliet had explained to Sophia what had happened, which meant Carol had no idea what she knew. Sophia had probably just been told that he deserved what had been done to him. "It'll be dinner soon. Why don't you come outside with everybody?"

"Hell with them people. Wouldn't piss on them if their heads were on fire." She pursed her lips. She hated the way he spoke around Sophia. At least most of the time Juliet was apologetic about swearing in front of her.

"One of those people is your daughter, Ed." she reminded him gently, not wanting to anger him.

"Hell with her most of all."

Carol looked down at Sophia and shrugged, and started to lead her out of the tent. Ed grabbed a hold of Sophia's arm before she left. Carol kept one hand resting on her back, hoping it was soothing enough that she wouldn't panic and annoy him.

"Hey! Why don't you stay here? Keep your daddy company."

"Ed, she wants to join in." She was almost shocked at herself for being so blunt about arguing with him. It was the bruises, she realised, his bruises, that told her someone was willing to hurt him if he hurt her again. She honestly didn't doubt Shane's promise to do even worse next time around, and it had given her a little confidence. Having it all out with Juliet hadn't hurt either. "Come on." She said to Sophia, leading her out.

"Fine. Hell with the both of you." Ed said as she took Sophia away. "Ain't no need to be bothering me no more the rest of the night."

"Gladly." Carol whispered, under her breath enough that not even Sophia, standing half a foot away could have heard her say it. She directed her daughter back to camp and listened to her chattering excitedly about the fish she had helped Shane with.

Juliet was right, as far as she could see. Sophia was still just a kid, a scared child who didn't deserve anything that happened to her. She deserved a better mother who could actually take care of her, a father who wouldn't hit her and do worse to her. The only family who deserved Sophia was Juliet; regardless of what danger it meant for herself Carol couldn't remember a time when Juliet had been living with them that she hadn't put herself in front of Sophia if Ed raised his hand or his belt to her. Juliet would take care of Sophia. Carol wished for the millionth time that when she had gone to college she would have gone somewhere closer to Georgia so Sophia at the very least could have seen her a few times a year. Juliet though had been happy to leave her parents as fast and as far behind her as she possibly could.

"Can we sit with Juliet?" Sophia asked her. She looked over – Juliet was by herself, for once not with Amy, the new friend she had immediately made at camp. Both her daughters were likeable girls who never had difficulty making friends.

"You can, if you ask her nicely." She was careful to say 'you' instead of we. Juliet would never have a problem with Sophia sitting with her, but she was unlikely to want Carol with her, regardless of what had just transpired between them.

"Juliet, can I sit with you?" Sophia asked, rushing over. Juliet looked up past Sophia to Carol.

"What did Carol say?"

"She said I could if I asked you nicely." Juliet smiled.

"Does she not want to sit with you too then?" Sophia shrugged. "Are you coming to sit with us, Carol?" Juliet called over to her. She was smiling brightly and invitingly, and she actually looked hopeful that Carol would accept. Perhaps since their conversation she was warming to the idea of rebuilding their relationship a little. Of course it would only be for Sophia's sake if she wanted to, but she was glad she looked to at least be thinking about it. She couldn't live indefinitely with her oldest daughter refusing to look her in the eye.

"I'd love to. Thank you for inviting me."

As they ate, Sophia sat by Juliet, chattering happily to them both. It was quite amazing that she could talk so quickly and eat so much at the same time. Juliet kept looking over and smiling at her, eventually taking Carols hand and giving it a quick squeeze before she let go. Carol hoped that Juliet was coming to realise she needed her as much as she needed Juliet.

Sophia stopped talking after a little while, and the two women took the opportunity to join the group conversation.

"I've got to ask you, man." Morales was saying to Dale as he wound his watch. "It's been driving me crazy."

"What?" Dale asked, confused.

"That watch." Morales said, pointing his fork at it, shaking his head. He was grinning. Everyone was relaxed this evening, genuinely happy for possibly the first time since they had all arrived and set up the camp.

"What's wrong with my watch?" Dale asked, still not getting it. Carol smiled.

"I see you every day, the same time, winding that thing like a village priest saying mass."

"I've wondered this myself." Jacqui said from across the little circle they were sat in. Most of the others, including Juliet were nodding. Even Carol had wondered about the watch.

"I'm missing the point."

"Unless I've misread the signs, the world seems to have come to an end." Jacqui said, grinning at him. "At least hit a speed bump for a good long while."

"But there's you every day winding that stupid watch." Morales added. Dale smiled at them both, in a way that suggested that if they didn't understand already they probably never would.

"Time… it's important to keep track, isn't it?" Dale said. He had the undivided attention of the entire group. " The days at least. Don't you think, Andrea? Back me up here." Andrea smiled and shrugged. "I like… I like what, um, a father said to son when he gave him a watch that had been handed down through generations. He said, 'I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire, which will fit your individual needs no better than it did mine or my father's before me; I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you may forget it for a moment now and then and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it.'."

"You are so weird." Amy said, shaking her head. "Juliet, why aren't you two best friends, you can sit and quote crap together all day." Juliet stuck her tongue out at her.

"I think that was a beautiful quote. You definitely did it justice." Juliet assured Dale, and he looked pleased that he had managed to resonate his words with at least one member of the camps younger generation, if not all of them.

Amy got up suddenly, and her sister looked worried.

"Where are you going?" she asked her immediately. Amy glared down at her.

"I have to pee." she replied, not bothering to keep her voice quiet. "Jeez, you try to be discreet around here…" Everyone laughed and Amy headed towards the RV.

The chatter continued, Dale and Juliet now exchanging their favourite Faulkner quotes much to the mock horror of everyone else, apart from Shane who was oddly able to join in. Carol wouldn't have had him down as the bookish type.

It was only as Amy stepped out of the RV, complaining about the lack of toilet paper, that everything changed.

The moment seemed to last forever. Try as she might to comprehend it later, Carol had no idea where the walker that bit her came from. It was just there, teeth clamped on her arm. Amy's fate was sealed before she even had the chance to scream. Andrea screamed at the same time she did, getting up and rushing over to her.

More walkers seemed to be pouring in to the camp from all directions. Carol could hear Sophia screaming, and her only priority now was keeping her daughter safe.

"Carol, get her away from this, get to Lori and keep her safe." Juliet said. She was blinking back tears at having just witnessed her friend die. Carol agreed immediately and Juliet ran to where they kept the baseball bats and took one. There were no guns left, so Carol tried to do as Juliet bade her and went to Lori, staying close to the other woman, clutching her daughter close to her. She watched as Juliet took out a few of them. She wasn't strong enough to kill them in one blow, but her hits were enough to keep them at bay, and when repeated the walkers dropped dead.

Shane was covering them with his gun, Lori calling out as to which direction the walkers were coming from. All those who had gone to Atlanta rushed back in to camp almost instantly. Carol could hear Rick shouting for his son, for Lori, and Carl shouting for him. The group that had just arrived took out several of them.

Carol screamed when she saw three approaching Juliet, capable as she was, she couldn't handle that with just a bat. Lori held her back.

She tripped, seemingly over nothing. She'd never been a graceful child.

Two were shot at the same time, one after. As far as Carol could tell, Glenn had shot one, Daryl two others. Both held their hands out and helped her up. With those three dead, it appeared that it was over, and Carol hung on to Sophia, hugging her in relief.

"I told you the dress was stupid." She heard Daryl say to Juliet, and she watched as her daughter gave him the barest of smiles before she looked out and finally comprehended the extent of the massacre that had just occurred.

The entire camp, for the first time, was silent for a few moment, before Amy died. Andrea began to scream, Carl and Sophia crying softly, but that was all until Jim spoke.

"I remember my dream now." he told them. "Why I dug the holes."


	5. Chapter 5

Wildfire

Daryl

The aftermath of what had happened was difficult to comprehend. At least half the camp was dead, bodies littered all over the ground, illuminated by the fire which continued to burn. He cursed Merle or whoever exactly it was that took their van. They should have been there to help, to stop all those other people dying.

He was sat beside the fire, staring in to it. No-one really wanted to sleep tonight. Anyone left alive was too busy thanking some higher power that they and their loved ones had survived. Well. Not Andrea, who was crouched over her sister's body.

"You saved my life." The tone was almost accusatory as well as grateful, and he looked up to Juliet, standing beside him. She had a jacket on over her dress now and her hair loose instead of tied up in the bun she often kept it in. He motioned for her to sit. She probably would have even if he hadn't invited her to. He could see her mother and her younger sister sitting with Rick and his family, drinking something warm. Her mother kept looking out to the devastation and back to her youngest daughter, still in slight disbelief that they had both managed to save themselves.

"Glenn helped." he mumbled.

"I already thanked Glenn."

He looked at her closely. He hadn't expected her to cope so well under pressure. He'd thought that after only killing one of them, so many would overwhelm her, and she'd get all philosophical about killing them again and knuckle under pressure, getting herself and several others killed. He felt bad for assuming the worst of her. She was good with a gun, better than he'd ever thought she was going to get when he offered to teach her. Time consuming as it was, he was glad he had offered. He was sure she'd be useful now, if anything else happened to them, and they didn't need someone else like Rick's wife or her mother who'd stand there screaming and not doing shit to help.

"You still haven't thanked me." She looked at him, trying to scope out whether he was serious or not. His glare softened a little and she grinned.

"Thanks."

"'S fine. You're just lucky we got back when we did." She nodded.

"I know. If you guys had been a minute later… I'd just be another body right now." Her voice was distant now, sad, a little scared. She shook her head, banishing away the thoughts that had crept up on her. "I guess you didn't find your brother then?"

"No, he was gone. Cut his own hand off to get off that damn roof. Tough son of a bitch. No patience, not that he'd have realised we were comin' back for him."

"I'm sorry."

"No you're not."

"I'm sorry for you. No matter what kinda person he was, he was your brother, and I'm sorry that you lost him. Do you know if he survived, I mean, was there any evidence that he might have?"

"Well, we're damn sure he stole our van, so there's that."

"One-handed? That's quite impressive. It's not great that we lost the van but points to Merle for ingenuity."

"That's why we rushed back." Daryl admitted. "We thought he'd taken the van and he was gonna come up here and… y'know. Kill y'all. That's what we thought was going down when we heard all the gun shots. Guess he just used it to get away from the city."

"Are you gonna search for him?"

"Wouldn't even know where to begin. Obviously I'll keep an eye out, but he had lost a hand and a fair bit of blood. Likelihood is that he didn't survive very long."

"You think he's dead."

"Until I'm proved wrong, yeah."

She lay one hand on his shoulder and gave him a sad smile when he looked up at her and took her hand away. She didn't say anything else. She'd been around him enough to know when he could put up with people talking and when he needed silence. He was glad he and Glenn had saved her. If there was anyone at camp he liked, it was probably her, and her mother actually. He hadn't spoken much to the older woman but she always had a soft smile for him, and she always thanked him when he brought food back for them all from a hunt. She hadn't, unlike most of them, done much to annoy him. He'd say the same about Juliet's little sister if she didn't keep following them out to the forest when he took Juliet for her shooting lessons.

"Juliet?" Daryl wasn't sure how long they had been sitting there for when he heard her mother calling her name, tentatively, and only loud enough that her voice carried to Juliet and no further than that. She looked over and smiled. "Could you go back to our tent and get Sophia a sweatshirt, she doesn't want me to leave." Juliet nodded and got up, picking up the bat she had been using earlier from the ground beside her feet.

"Wanna come with me?" she asked. He looked up at her and frowned before he shook his head. "Are you sure? It'd give you a chance to stretch your legs."

"You're scared to go by yourself." It wasn't a question. She looked down at the ground.

"Okay, yeah, I am… But there might be some left on the outskirts of camp. I don't think it's an unreasonable fear. Forget it, I'll be fine." She didn't sound sure. He sighed deeply and got up, checking his gun was at his side. Juliet smiled gratefully at him before she began making her way over to her family's tent.

The tent was half opened and Juliet came to an immediate halt. Daryl drew his gun, and the two approached slowly.

To her credit, she didn't scream. She just looked down in horror at the body lying there. He could see her trying to breathe slowly. She looked like she was about to faint. He tried saying her name but still she stood there staring. She wobbled slightly, and with the hand not holding his gun he grabbed her arm, steadying her. Finally, she looked away from her fathers mutilated corpse and over to him.

"What am I supposed to tell Carol?" she asked quietly, as though he had any idea what she was supposed to do. "And Sophia… Why hasn't Carol been back here yet? She must have realised he wasn't down there… What do I do?" She was hyperventilating now.

"Breathe less fast." he suggested. It was really all the advice he had right now.

"How helpful. I don't know how I'd struggle through this ordeal without you around me." Juliet said, glaring at him.

"Well what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know! Something fucking helpful!"

"You brought the wrong person with you if that was what you were hopin' for." The ghost of a smile crossed her face and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"Could I just leave it alone and let Carol find it later?"

"You could, but she knows you came up here. 'Sides, ain't that kinda cruel?"

"I'd best go talk to her then." Juliet said defeated. Before she left she walked over to where they kept their belongings and found a sweatshirt for Sophia. Daryl looked at her and she nodded, and in silence the two made their way back.

Juliet walked over to her mother and handed her what she had brought for her sister. She took Carol aside.

"Carol… It's, uh, it's Ed. I think some walkers came in past your tent, and he was like, getting out, and he… uh… he was bitten. Badly. I think he… I think he died before the worst of it even started." Juliet said to her. She was usually so good with words, what little she said anyway, but she seemed completely lost now.

"Oh God, I should have gone up when it all ended, but I was so worried about Sophia…"

"It's okay. You couldn't have done anything." Juliet said softly as her mother choked out a small sob.

"I… I have to go up there."

"You go, I'll talk to Sophia for you, if you want." Carol nodded.

"Please. I wouldn't know where to begin."

She put a hand on her mother's shoulder for just a second, and watching her he realised it was probably the only way she knew to convey reassurance. He had noticed that she tended to avoid physical contact, but he had assumed that she'd just read him well and knew he wasn't the touchy-feely type. Daryl realised now it was just how she was with everyone, even her family. The only person he had seen her get close to was Sophia.

As Carol left he watched Rick's wife go after her and Juliet gave him a small smile before she went to sit down with her sister, too far away for him to overhear. Rick and Carl left soon, and Rick gave a nod in his direction before guiding his kid away from them, who was protesting loudly about why he couldn't stay with Sophia.

Sophia

"Do you understand what I'm telling you, sweetheart?" Juliet asked, stroking a hand through her hair again. She knew that Juliet liked people to touch her hair when she was upset too. It was something they had in common, one of very few things actually.

"Dad's dead." Sophia's voice was cold, emotionless. She knew she should feel upset, but she couldn't quite bring herself to. She could see Rick and Daryl now up at the tent hauling her father's body away. Her mother had probably been crying. She wondered why she had sent Juliet to tell her instead of doing it herself.

"Yeah, that's right." Juliet did not sound surprised that Sophia wasn't upset. She probably felt a very similar sense of relief at what had happened.

"Will he come back?" she asked her. The prospect worried Sophia. He might be even worse if he came back as one of the walkers than he was when he was alive.

"No, they'll… deal with it before that can happen. You don't need to worry about that."

"Are you sad?"

Juliet looked at her for a long time, pushing her hair out of her face. She wasn't wearing her glasses, Sophia noticed, they were sat on top of her head. Knowing Juliet in a few minutes she'd panic about where they were, assuming she'd lost them and it would take her at least twenty minutes to realise they were on top of her head. She looked away from Sophia's eyes before she slowly shook her head and looked back up.

"You don't have to feel sorry if you're not sad either." Juliet told her firmly. "Carol won't be mad if you don't cry. She'll understand."

"I don't wanna cry."

"That's okay. I don't either."

"I'd cry if you died. I'd cry if mom died." Juliet smiled sadly and stroked through her hair again, pulling her a little closer.

"I know you would, sweetheart."

"Would you cry if I died?"

"That's not going to happen."

"But if it did?"

"It won't."

"Just answer!" Juliet laughed softly.

"Of course I would. You're my little sister."

"Would you forget me?"

"No, Sophia, of course I wouldn't. But like I said, it's not going to happen, so stop worrying about it."

Sophia was quite happy to just sit there for a little while in silence with her. She was just glad, as she so often had been over the last few weeks, that Juliet was there with her. She couldn't imagine what she would have done if Juliet had still been in California. She wondered if she would have tried to get to her, or if she might have died after a few weeks, or been focussed only on saving herself and whoever she was with.

She couldn't see her mother, but she saw Rick and Daryl carrying her father's body to the pile they were making of all those who had died that evening. It was sad, Sophia thought, that they had all been so happy a few hours ago, Juliet and her mother talking properly for the first time in months, eating around the fire with everyone. It had all fallen apart so quickly.

She voiced this to Juliet who just smiled sadly again and said:

"It's just what happens nowadays."

Sophia wished it wasn't. Things before had been pretty bad, but at least then there were no walkers to worry about, and she'd been able to have a proper night's sleep in her bed rather than lying on the ground in a cold tent.

"Juliet, I'm tired."

"You can come sleep in my tent for the night, I'm not sure you should go back to yours. Go get set up in there, okay, I'll be in there in a minute. I'll just find Carol and make sure she knows where you are so she doesn't worry."

Juliet's tent was set up next to Amy and Andrea's, close to the RV. Andrea was still by her sister's side; she hadn't moved since the attack. Sophia went in without causing too much fuss. The tent was a lot smaller than hers was. A small lantern was in the corner on top of a stack of books, some novels, some notebooks which Sophia knew Juliet would be writing either her own stories or her diary in. Sophia flicked on the lantern. Bedding lined the floor to make it comfier, and a single pillow was on top of it. Her stuff was mostly outside, still in the suitcase she had brought home with her.

Juliet entered the tent after not too long, carrying another pillow with her.

"Carol thought you might need this." Sophia took it and lay it beside her pillow.

"Will you stay with me? I don't wanna be by myself." Juliet nodded and lay down beside Sophia. "Tell me one of your stories."

"I can read to you from a book if you like."

"I hate books. Well, I hate your books."

"'The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.'" Juliet had said this to her a lot when Sophia complained about books. Juliet's stories were always much more interesting though. And shorter.

"And I hate Jane Austen most of all." Juliet laughed.

"Okay, which of my stories do you wanna hear?"

"A new one!"

Sophia knew she was far too old to be being told stories by her older sister, but she found it to be of great comfort to her. The last night Juliet had been at home she had told her a story. Sophia hadn't realised she was leaving for college the next day. Juliet hadn't told her. She explained in a letter that she would have cried if she'd had to say goodbye to her, so she had just left. Sophia knew she felt guilty about it, Juliet had said as much. She wished she could have left as easily as Juliet had. Sometimes she wished she was the older one.

What Sophia didn't realise of course was that Juliet could never come up with a story suitable to tell her. The ones she wrote were too dark for her younger sister, so she was in the habit of taking books she knew Sophia hadn't read or historical events and changing the names of characters or people so that she wouldn't catch on. Because of her outward contempt of Jane Austen, today's reworked novel was Emma. It was a pretty long book, and Sophia fell asleep not too far in.

Juliet

Juliet awoke next to her sister, and saw that it was light outside. Careful not to wake the younger girl, she emerged from her tent and stretched.

It had taken her that long to remember exactly what had happened the night before – The fish fry, Amy, Ed, everyone else, it all came back to her like a ton of bricks being dropped on top of her. Looking over to the RV she could see Andrea still there beside Amy, and awful as it was she was thankful it was not her and Sophia in that position. She was devastated about Amy though; she made a note to pay her respects to Andrea as soon as she was ready to receive them. For now, Juliet thought, it was probably best to leave her undisturbed.

Juliet approached a small group which had gathered. She could hear them discussing Amy.

"Tell 'em we can't just leave her, Juliet." Daryl said to her. She looked over and realised no-one had taken care of Amy yet. She frowned. She had just woken up. She was not in the mood for this.

"He's right, we can't leave her like that." Daryl looked triumphant. "But her sister needs time to grieve her, and it's not fair if we just run in and put a bullet in her brain before she's ready." Now Lori looked triumphant. Daryl rolled his eyes.

"Fine. Y'all can deal with what happens when she comes back then, I ain't doin' shit." He walked off away from them.

"How are you and Sophia doin'?" Lori asked her as the rest of the group dissipated. She handed Juliet a mug of tea and took her over to sit down, giving Juliet enough time to form an answer which didn't sound like she was rejoicing because her father had died.

"We're okay. How's Carol?"

"She's doing pretty well. Told us to leave the two of you to sleep this mornin', especially Sophia. It was a hard night for her."

"Must've been pretty hard on Carl too." Juliet said, veering the conversation away as best she could.

"Yeah, but they're both tough kids with all they've been through. They'll be okay."

Juliet might have thought of something else for them to talk about so they weren't sat together awkwardly if Jacqui hadn't started shouting.

"A walker got him! A walker bit Jim." she shouted. The pair ran over quickly, hearing Jim claim to be okay repeatedly. Lori looked over worriedly at Carl, as if by being in proximity to Jim the same might happen to him.

"Show it to us." Daryl said. Jim backed away from him. "Show it to us." he said louder. Juliet watched on in horror.

"Easy, Jim." Shane said to him, calming him the way you might calm a horse or another wild animal, not a person. Jim was still slinking away from them when Daryl quickly gave Shane the order to grab a hold of him. In a strange, twisted pantomime of the day before, Jim picked up a shovel off the ground, brandishing it at the men. Shane, still trying not to spook him calmly told him to put it down. To Juliet it simply felt like the most horrific déjà vu.

T-Dog managed to catch Jim and held him steady. Over and over as Daryl lifted his shirt he repeated that he was okay. The deep wound on his chest said otherwise.

Jim was sat by himself, quietly. The others discussed him. Jacqui, who Juliet knew was close with Jim, looked worried.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it." Came Daryl's blunt suggestion.

"Let Andrea grieve." Juliet hissed at him.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asked him, glaring. Until that point Juliet had been firmly on his side, but she knew that if it was her, in either Jim or Amy's position, that she would want them to put her out of her misery. She would never want to become one of those things, not even for a few seconds.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it." Daryl glared at her. They had spoken about this a few times on the long walks away from camp. He knew what she would have wanted.

"I hate to say it… I never thought I would… but maybe Daryl's right." Dale said. The group looked genuinely shocked that Dale was agreeing with him.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog." Rick said firmly. Not yet, Juliet thought, but he might be soon.

"I'm not suggesting…" Dale began, but Rick cut him off.

"He's sick. A sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear." Daryl said. "Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be."

Having had enough of the arguing now, Juliet walked away and went in to her tent. She had forgotten that Sophia was in there, although she found her awake, reading one of her notebooks. She was just glad it wasn't her diary.

"Morning!" Sophia said brightly, as though she had completely forgotten the night before.

"Morning." Juliet replied with a lot less enthusiasm, although it was probably afternoon by now. "Why are you still in here?"

"Because in here is quiet and safe and if I stay here then I don't have to deal with everything outside." she replied, sounding a lot older than she was. Juliet laughed softly and kissed the top of her head before she took her hand and took her outside. Honestly, Sophia had no idea how chaotic it still was out there.

"Go find Carl and play with him, okay? He's been looking lonely all day. We had to keep telling him not to wake you up." Sophia grinned at her and ran off to find him.

Juliet went back in to her tent to make her bed a little tidier. She looked over the notebook Sophia had been reading. It was just full of plans for books she wanted to write, one in particular, some fantasy series that she would never have the patience to draw out of planning. Several pages were filled with names of characters and creatures, some sketches she had done to accompany them sat on the opposite pages.

She took a few minutes to read through it again, smiling at the for once detailed plans. She usually dived straight in to writing a story, but this one had needed time. She'd probably never get the change to write it properly now.

After a little while she left the comfort of her tent and went outside. She wandered over, for no reason in particular, to Daryl, who was stood with a pick-axe ensuring none of those who had been bitten would come back again. He looked over at her when he heard footsteps and nodded towards one of the people on the ground, one whose head looked even more mutilated than the others.

"If you've come over to drive somethin' sharp into your daddy's head then you're too late." he told her before he swung the pick-axe down to some other poor bastard's head.

"I hadn't. Did you…"

"Your mom."

She looked at the head and thought how her mother, stronger than she looked, must have swung it down on him. It hadn't been just once. She must have done it over and over, taking out all those years of abuse on him. Suddenly, Juliet wished she'd gotten there first so it could have been her.

"I'll clean up after you." Juliet looked at him in confusion. "If you wanna… do what your mom did. There ain't much of his head left, but there's plenty of the rest of him."

"That's sick."

"You don't gotta feel bad 'bout it. I'm not gonna tell no-one."

She held her hand out for the pick-axe before she could think the better of it. Looking down at him she shook her head, resting the axe on the ground. She folded her arms over herself. Through the thin material of her shirt she felt the long scar along her hip. Her eyes darkened a little as she picked up the axe again and swung it down, first in to what was left of his head, then his neck, and repeatedly in to his stomach, thinking of everything he had done to her, Carol, and Sophia most of all as she kept slicing in to him. She knew her mother would have cried as she did it. Juliet never shed one tear. He wasn't worth it.

She felt her hand being grabbed before she could swing again. She didn't know how long she'd been doing it for, but her arms ached, and there wasn't a whole lot left of Ed.

"Damn. I was gonna ask you to help with the rest but I'm not sure you've got in in you." Daryl said. She looked up at him and swallowed, not smiling.

"I can handle it."

"Get to it then. Just the heads, and just once, mind, nothin' like that again. Better bag him up 'fore anyone else sees this mess." He might not have been happy about having to clean it up but he looked as though he understood, and didn't blame her for what she had done.

Juliet didn't feel good about it, nor had it brought her the relief she hoped it would. She had some peace of mind now, knowing that she had done something. Doing that was far better than doing nothing at all, of course it was, but he had already been dead. It was sicker than just doing it in the first place, but she wished he had been alive the night before when she found him, wished that he had taken Jim's place as being alive but bitten, dying slowly, painfully. Jim didn't deserve that, but Ed did. It would have given her a lot more of a sense of relief if he had been alive when someone drove an axe in to his head, preferably her or Carol.

There were only about five left to take care of, and Ed was in a bag by the time she was done.

"How are you gonna explain that?" she asked him. He shrugged.

"I'll say he was bit badly and you didn't want Sophia to see it. They'll believe what they wanna believe."

"Thank you for getting me to do that."

"Wasn't like you had to. I just thought it might help."

"It has a little." she admitted.

"Not a lot else you can do."

"You're being worryingly nice to me today."

"Figured I could give you a break, just today."

"What, 'cause my beloved father just died?" She stared at him for a few seconds before she looked down at the bag and laughed. "Oh God, I should not be laughing. I should be sombre and sad or at least try to look it. But damn that felt good. I'm a terrible person."

"I've met worse."

"Your kind words are what keep me going through these troubled times."

"I'm just glad to be helpin' out."

"Was that a very poor attempt at copying my sarcastic humour? Because if it was, wow. I wasn't sure you even knew what a joke was."

"Shut up."

"Oh please, I've kept talking after scarier people than you have said that to me."

"You've really got no common sense, have you?"

"Nope."

He just looked at her and shook his head, a very faint smile crossing his lips, one she would have easily missed on anyone else. It passed quickly but she kept looking at him. It would have been less odd if he'd just started doing cartwheels around her.

"Help me load these on to the truck." He motioned towards the bodies. She kept standing still.

"You smiled at me." He ignored her.

"Help me with the bodies, Glenn wants 'em up somewhere we can dig graves."

"You actually smiled at me."

"Help me with these."

"You actually like me!" He stopped ignoring her.

"No, I really don't."

"Yes you do! We're friends!"

"We're definitely not."

"Be as grumpy as you like, I got a smile outta you and it only took me two months, which I would estimate is probably about three years less than it takes most people."

"I'll like you even less if you don't get your ass over here and start helpin'."

She looked at him, knowing she could tease it further but aware that it probably wasn't the best idea, grinning at him before she started lifting the legs of the bodies he was loading on to the truck. There was nothing for her to find humour in but she found herself having to stop herself laughing. She knew Daryl was noticing. It was awful, and there was nothing funny about what she was doing, but she couldn't help herself.

"Stop glaring at me." Juleit said after a while.

"Stop laughin' at nothin'. They ain't gonna be too pleased back at camp if you're laughin' about their friends dying."

"I'm not laughing about that."

"Then what?"

"I'll tell you when I figure it out." He sighed.

"Sit on the back of the truck, keep 'em from fallin' out. I'll drive slow."

Not wanting to irritate him any more than she already had she jumped on to the back and sat sideways with her legs out, forming a barricade. There were too many in there for the door to work, and suddenly she was very aware of the fact she was sitting by the bodies of people she had known. She had eaten with them, spoken to them, known them, if not all of them particularly well. She recognised one woman beside her, a little older than Carol. She remembered on one of their first nights there she had brought Sophia over to her because she was scared and Ed was yelling at Carol. Susan, her name had been, and it didn't matter now. No matter what kind of person each of them had been, sweet like she was or deserving of this like her father in the body bag, they'd all ended up like this anyway.

She wondered, as she was tossed around in the truck, if they had somehow gotten a better deal out of all this than she had. They weren't miserable any more, they weren't scared. They got out of all this misery, didn't have to see the destruction their own deaths had caused.

"'Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.'" she whispered softly to herself.

Daryl stopped the truck where Rick and Shane were digging graves, and pushing all thoughts of death out of her head, she grabbed a shovel and started pitching in.

"I still think it's a mistake not burning these bodies." Daryl said warningly. "It's what we said we'd do, right? Burn 'em all, wasn't that the idea?"

"At first." Shane said.

"They won't come back, we took care of them. And this… It can only be passed through bites, right? It's not gonna spread to us through some bodies in graves over a hundred yards from where we sleep at night." Juliet said with a shrug. Her arms still hurt from using the pick-axe, but she wanted to help, to keep busy.

"The Chinaman gets all emotional, says it's not the thing to do, we just follow him along? These people need to know who the hell's in charge here, what the rules are."

"There are no rules." Rick said.

"Well, that's a problem." Lori chimed in. "We haven't had one minute to hold onto anything of our old selves. We need time to mourn and we need to bury our dead. It's what people do." Lori looked over to Juliet like she expected her to agree wholeheartedly, and then over to the bodies in the van. Juliet sighed. Lori expected her to want to mourn and bury her father, cry while someone said nice things about him that weren't true, when in fact she would like nothing more than to throw his corpse on a bonfire and never have to think about him again.

She wasn't sure if her thoughts were too morbid and twisted to be justified or not, but she had stopped minding them the moment she sunk the pick-axe in to what little was left of her father's skull, and started to welcome them when she chopped at the rest of him.

"I heard a gunshot earlier." Juliet said, deflecting Lori's attention. "Did Andrea…?"

"Yeah, she did." Lori said sadly. "She came back, Amy, and Andrea looked like she believed that she might know her but, in the end they always lose who they are. It wasn't her sister, it was some parasite in her body. Andrea put her down, nice and gentle. I think she was glad it was her, not someone else."

"If it was Sophia…" she lowered her voice a little. "I'd do the same. I'd want it to be me."

"It'd be different for you." Daryl said assuredly. "Amy was an adult, Andrea knew that, knew that she'd at least lived some of her life. Sophia's a kid. You'd never be able to look at her at this age and pull the trigger on a gun when you can barely kill some walker you never knew." Her mind flitted back to at the forest.

"She tripped yesterday, it's not her fault she couldn't kill them." Lori defended. She smiled weakly; no-one apart from she and Daryl knew what he was actually talking about.

Juliet wondered if he was right, if she really didn't have it in her to raise a gun to her little sister if this happened to her and put her out of her misery. She asked herself what other option there would be. Letting Sophia live as a walker would be cruel. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind. She wouldn't have to worry about that, she told herself. She'd keep Sophia safe.

They held a mass funeral for all their dead. Juliet debated not going, but as Carol reminded her, she needed to say goodbye to Amy. She had stayed, watching bodies being lowered in to grave she had helped to dig. Her arms really were killing her now.

"Why is he in a bag?" Carol had whispered to her as Ed had been lowered.

"Daryl said that he looked pretty bad. I didn't want Sophia to see, so I suggested we bag him up." she replied as nonchalantly as possible. She saw Carol whisper this to Lori, who had obviously asked the initial question. She looked unsatisfied by the answer, but she accepted that it was the only one she was going to get and said nothing else.

Juliet cried silently, unashamed, as Andrea put her younger sister in one of the graves. She held Sophia tight to her. Sophia turned away and closed her eyes. Juliet knew she would have done exactly the same thing at twelve.

"Juliet, could you watch Sophia for a while, I'm gonna take over from Jacqui and watch Jim for a bit." Carol told her. She nodded. Honestly she'd rather not – she just wanted to find somewhere quiet to sit by herself in the shade for a while a mull things over, but she knew Carol liked to keep busy in times of crisis so she let her go.

"Juliet, wait up!" She turned to see Shane.

"Go on ahead Sophia, I'll catch up. Stay in shouting distance." Sophia ran off and she turned to him. "What's up?"

"Have you heard the plans yet?" She shook her head. "Didn't think so. Rick's convinced we need to head to the CDC."

"Really, why?"

"He's convinced there's gonna be some magical cure waitin' for us there. For Jim, y'know? He doesn't see it like we do. He doesn't see that's bullshit." She wondered why it was suddenly even Rick's call as to where they went. "I personally, well, I think we need to be headin' down to Fort Benning, the army base. If there's anything left, near here, anyway, it's gotta be there."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I need people on my side so I can make my case."

"Look, Shane, I don't care what happens right now. All I care about is keeping my little sister safe. I don't care where we go, or what you do with Jim. Ask someone whose opinion people will actually listen to, like Dale, or try and reason with Daryl. This isn't my call, and it's sure as hell not my problem." With this she marched down the path after Sophia.

"You okay?" Sophia asked when she found her back at camp.

"Yeah…" _I just yelled at Shane for no reason and before that I was chopping our father up like an insane person, but sure, I'm fine._ Juliet realised that she was going to have to try very hard not to snap at Sophia the way she just had with Shane. She was sure what she had done was unwarranted but she wasn't in the mood for big group debates today.

It was quite late afternoon when Shane, Rick and Dale all arrived back from their sweep of the surrounding area. Juliet was sat on the ground letting Sophia braid her hair over and over again, trying to get it perfect. She liked people playing with her hair when she was in a bad mood. Sophia was talking to her about nothing in particular, but she really wasn't listening. Sophia didn't care if she answered or not, she just liked being able to talk at someone without them telling her to be quiet. Carol had come over a few times to check on them before heading back to Jim. Every time she did, Sophia would ask another unanswerable question about what was going to happen to him, and why they couldn't help.

"Listen up!" Shane announced as he walked back in, and Sophia stopped talking immediately and let her hands fall out of Juliet's hair. "I've been, uh… I've been thinking about Rick's plan. Now look, there are no… There are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first one to admit that. I've known this man a long time. I trust his instincts. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together. So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning." CDC it was then. Juliet was just glad she didn't have to listen to anymore arguing about it, though she probably was obliged to apologise to Shane for snapping at him earlier.

"Okay?" Rick asked. There was general agreement around camp. Of course, if Carol didn't want to go then she wouldn't either, she couldn't leave Sophia, but she didn't think that would be a problem. Her mother would probably just go along with the plan.

Later that evening, after a dinner eaten in silence with the overwhelming feeling of emptiness around camp, Juliet had taken some of the plates down to the lake to wash them. It had been her and Amy's turn, but that wasn't something she had mentioned. With fewer mouths to feed, she was more than capable of doing it on her own. Daryl was sat not too far away, trying to catch fish from the lake side. She had noticed his absence at dinner.

"So are you coming to the CDC?" she asked him after a little while. He didn't look surprised that she was striking up a conversation. He was silent for a moment before he looked over to her and shrugged before answering.

"Well, I ain't really got anywhere else to go since them idiots handcuffed my brother to a fucking roof, have I?"

"You could go off on your own."

"That's a death sentence if I ever heard one."

"If you hated us all as much as you pretend to you wouldn't care."

She was rewarded with another very small smile which lasted half a second longer than the one earlier had done. This time she didn't say anything, just smiled to herself and carried on with the dishes. He might not want to admit it but she knew they were friends. It was no longer a case of him just putting up with her. He actually liked and welcomed her company.

"Do you agree with me 'bout Jim yet?" Daryl asked her after a few minutes.

"I'm terrified he's gonna turn overnight. I mean, it was a pretty big bite, right? I know it takes longer if a person's left alive, but do any of us know how long exactly? Maybe it would be best… 'If they killed him tonight, at least he would die alive'."

"That's one of the better stupid quotes I've heard you say."

"How'd you know I didn't just come up with that?"

"Because whenever you're being all profound and shit you're usually talkin' the nonsense you read in them books. And whenever you have these little moral crisis's you come up with one." She had to smile at how well he already figured out. She didn't class herself as a particularly complicated person, but not a lot of people paid enough attention to really get to know her. She reckoned that Daryl was just a very good judge of character.

"You've really been paying attention enough to have me completely figured out?"

"Wasn't a lot else to do while we were walkin', was there?"

"Guess not. You could have actually talked to me."

"Didn't want to encourage us talkin'."

"And becoming friends."

"See before you mentioned that I was gonna offer you a ride to the CDC, but you can forget it now." He looked more amused than annoyed and she grinned at him.

"Because we're friends."

"I'm definitely not offering now."

"Too late, you've mentioned it now."

"Nope, no way."

"You have to, or I'll be stuck in the RV."

"Not my problem."

"It is. Please?" She hadn't wanted to go in the RV anyway considering it meant she'd have to spend the whole journey with and ill Jim and Dale and Jacqui worrying about it, and Glenn, who would either be silent or talking nonsense that she didn't have the patience to listen to, but there wasn't room for her anywhere else apart from with Shane, and since she hadn't apologised for her outburst she doubted he was going to offer her a ride. Rick had suggested she asked Daryl but she had just laughed it off. Now the idea was very appealing to her.

"No."

"Daryl!" she whined. He sighed deeply.

"Fine, but you keep quiet."

"I win!"

"I can reject the offer."

"No you can't. I'm going back to camp before you realise what a horrible idea it is."

"I already know what a horrible idea it is."

She collected the plates and cutlery in the bag she'd brought them down in, careful to pack them in a way that meant nothing would break. She got up and stopped as she was passing him.

"Thanks for offering."

"I didn't really."

"Hey, you thought up the idea, not me."

"Better you than anyone else." Juliet smiled to herself and shook her head as she made her way back to camp.

"What took you so long?" Carol asked as she made her way back in to camp. She shrugged as she knelt down and began to unload the plates from her bag. Without even thinking, Carol knelt to help her with it, and she smiled warmly at her.

"Befriending anti-social people takes time."

The next morning, after another night where very few people slept, this time including her, what was left of the camp packed away, those who had been left alive after the massacre of the other night gathered around the cars. Juliet was sad that Morales and his family had decided to take a car and head in another direction, but not shocked. The CDC wasn't a sure thing, and if there was another viable option which seemed safer she would probably take it too. Sophia cried as she said goodbye to Eliza, who gave her the doll that she carried everywhere. Sophia took great pride in showing it to Juliet.

"You sure you've got all your stuff?" Carol asked her.

"Carol, you're making me paranoid. I've checked like fifteen times, I have everything I'll need immediately in the backpack, and all mine, yours, and Sophia's stuff in the suitcase which is going with you in the car. Stop making me worry!" Carol laughed and put her arm around Sophia.

"Right, we'll see you when we stop. Sophia, say goodbye to your sister."

"Bye!" Sophia said happily.

"Bye kid." Juliet said with a grin, ruffling her hair before she got in to the passenger side of the truck and watched the two of them get in to the car with Rick and Lori.

"Got all your stuff?" Daryl asked her. Juliet knew full well he'd been listening to the exchange so she pulled a face at him.

"Fuck off."

"I can still kick you out."

"I know you won't."

Juliet managed to be quiet for about five minutes before she remembered that reading in cars gave her headaches and she had to stop. Daryl needed to learn some conversational skills, because looking over to check she hadn't died every few minutes was not really going to keep her entertained for any of this journey.

"So what is this game?" he asked her after she proposed they play something.

"Zitch walker. Like zitch dog, but with walkers. Every time you see a walker on the side of the road you say zitch walker and whoever says it first gets the point. You usually play it with dogs in other cars but it seems kinda morbid to look in the cars we pass for dead dogs." Daryl looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"Why are you making me play this?"

"I'm bored."

"Should've gone in another car then." She frowned. "Zitch walker." She grinned.

"Not fair, we hadn't started yet."

"Too bad, I'm drivin'; we play your dumb games when I say we do. You're just gonna have to catch up. And zitch walker. You suck at this."

"Because you're talking to me! And if it's a dumb game why are you playing?"

"I'm bored too, even if this is stupid and childish."

What started off a rather calm game quickly escalated so they both yelled each time they saw a walker and argued fiercely over who saw it first. Daryl had been smiling faintly since about the sixth one they'd seen, and again came the feeling of pride that he actually smiled when she was around.

"Hell no, I called that one first!" he told her firmly. They were still arguing about one that they had seen at least two miles back.

"Bullshit, I called it like five seconds before you did!" she argued.

"If you think I'm lettin' you take that point then…" Daryl stopped as he saw the cars in front grind to a halt. He put the brakes on the car and frowned. "C'mon, let's go see what's up."

The pair got out of the car and walked down to where everyone was gathered around the RV. Lori explained quickly that the radiator hose was shot and that Shane and T-Dog had just left with the hope of finding some way of fixing it. Juliet could see them walking up ahead towards what looked like a gas station.

Jim was getting worse, as she understood. Rick spent a lot of time in the RV. Sophia was busy playing with Carl so she just stood with her arms folded against the RV, braiding her hair.

Shane and T-Dog came back quickly and as she understood it, they had managed to find a way to fix the RV radiator hose, not that she understood the slightest thing about cars, having never owned one herself and therefore never having had to know anything.

"Jim wants to be left here." Rick announced to everyone as he exited the RV.

"He said that?" Lori asked, dubious of this. Rick nodded.

"It's what he says he wants."

"And he's lucid?" Carol asked, also sceptical.

"He seems to be. I would say yes." Rick replied.

"If it's what he wants, it not out call." Juliet said with a small shrug. "We have to do as he asks even if we might not want to." Dale nodded.

"Back in the camp when I said Daryl might be right and you shut me down, you misunderstood. I would never go along with callously killing a man." This was accompanied by a quick glare in Daryl's direction who shrugged. Juliet shook her head. "I was just gonna suggest that we ask Jim what he wants. And I think we have an answer."

"We just leave him here? We take off? Man, I'm not sure I could live with that." Shane said quietly.

"It's not your call, either one of you." Lori said decisively.

"It's his. It has to be his." Carol agreed. There seemed to be a murmur of agreement throughout everyone there. Some looked upset at the prospect, Jacqui especially, but no-one outwardly disagreed, so Shane and Rick headed in to the RV and carried him out, up a slight hill, and propped him up against a tree.

"Hey, another damn tree." Jim said, chuckling to himself. Juliet smiled sadly at him. It must be awful to know you're going to die imminently.

"Hey, Jim… I mean, you know it doesn't need to be this." Shane told him. She wondered what other options there were though. Jim, in this condition, would never make it to the CDC. There was only this, or suicide, or, if he wanted someone else to do it, an odd and inhumane seeming euthanasia.

"No. It's good. The breeze feels nice." Jim said. She was blinking away tears.

"Okay. All right." Shane sounded defeated, sad that he hadn't been able to do anything for Jim, sounding like he thought he had failed as a leader.

"Just close your eyes, sweetie. Don't fight." Jacqui said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Jim, do you want this?" Rick offered him a gun. He shook his head.

"No. You'll need it. I'm okay. I'm okay." Juliet didn't understand how anyone could want to turn. Surely death was better than knowing you would completely lose yourself, but of course, Jim wouldn't see it that way, not since his wife and sons had been turned.

"Oh. Hey. Thanks for, uh, for fighting for us." Dale for once seemed lost for words.

As the group departed one by one she found herself stood there, not knowing what to say. There was nothing. She hadn't been close enough to him to say a profound goodbye, but she'd also known him too well to just not care that it was happening. They'd lived together for two months now. It would be odd and unfamiliar not to have him stood helping Dale with the RV every day and never seeming to get much done in the way of fixing it.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up at Daryl. She looked at Jim one last time and gave him a very weak smile which was all she could muster up, and let Daryl lead her back down to the truck.

"Cry if you like." Daryl said, softly for once, not pitying, more sympathetic. "I ain't gonna judge you or tell no-one."

"Thanks, but I think I'm okay."

She was quite happy to spend the rest of the journey in silence, which probably would have suited Daryl just fine if he hadn't been worrying about her because of it. She just stared out of the window, willing it to be over soon. After what seemed like a long time but probably wasn't, she fell asleep leaning against the glass pane of the window.

"Hey, wake up. We're here." Daryl shook her softly and she opened her eyes. It took a moment for it to all come back to her, where they were, what had happened. She savoured the moment of ignorance every morning as she awoke, that moment when nothing was real and she didn't remember any of what had happened, who she was, where she was. They were the only real times now that she felt safe, and so she enjoyed them as best she could.

She got out of the truck a little groggily and was simply met by a lot of people telling her to be quiet. The courtyard they had stopped in was full of bodies, but since none of them were walking around trying to eat her, she didn't see this as too much of an issue.

As they approached the building Shane pounded on the shutters. They were met by silence. There was no-one there, no-one to help them. T-Dog voiced this immediately.

"Then why are these shutters down?" Rick asked. Someone might have answered, or at least taken the time to think about it had Daryl not then yelled:

"Walkers!" Everyone turned around and saw them approaching. Lori and Carol looked frightened, and exchanging a look both told their children to stay close. They looked ready to head back to the cars. "You led us into a graveyard!" Daryl accused Rick as he shot at one of them. Juliet remembered very quickly that she was unarmed.

"He made a call." Shane defended his decision.

"It was the wrong damn call!" Daryl screamed.

"We should have listened to you in the first place." Juliet said to Shane, shaking her head slowly, looking to Sophia as more walkers were shot, checking she was okay. She was clutching Carol now, sobbing quietly.

They all argued for too long about what to do next, but as more walkers approached it seemed to only option was to head back to the cars and drive as far as they could with what little gas they had left.

"All right, everybody back to the cars. Let's go. Move." Shane told them. Everyone seemed to oblige fairly quickly.

"The camera… it moved." Rick said quietly. Everyone stopped.

"You imagined it." Shane insisted, anxious to be getting back to the cars.

"It moved." Rick said. "It moved." he repeated.

"Rick, it is dead, man. It's an automated device. It's gears, okay? They're just winding down. Now come on. Man, just listen to me. Look around this place. It's dead, okay? It's dead. You need to let it go, Rick." He wouldn't listen to Shane, He began banging on the shutters helplessly. She heard Sophia sob louder. Shane and Lori tried to cajole him and drag him away.

"Everybody get back to the cars now!" Shane instructed.

"Please, we're desperate." Rick said to the ghost of a camera. "Please help us. We have women, children, no food, hardly any gas left."

"Rick. There's nobody here." Lori told him again. He was acting like a madman. Even if anyone was there, they would probably never let someone who seemed than unhinged in. Rick kept pounding on the door.

"Come on, buddy, let's go. Let's go."

"Please help us." Rick begged. "You're killing us! You're killing us! You're killing us!"

They were finally going to leave, walking away, Juliet by Sophia's side now, one hand in her little sister's hair when the shutters opened, and they were drowned in light from inside the building. She could say or do nothing but stand with wide eyes, staring, hoping that finally with this, their luck was going to begin to turn.


	6. Chapter 6

TS-19

Carol

A great sense of foreboding hung in the air as the group made its way in to the CDC. Both Carol and her oldest daughter stuck close to Sophia, although Daryl stuck very close to the trio. She was pretty sure she knew exactly what her daughter was doing; looking for company in anyone who'd talk to her now Amy was gone. She expected soon enough she would move on to Andrea, once she was finished grieving of course. Still, Carol liked Daryl, and it couldn't hurt to have him close by in unfamiliar territory to keep Sophia safe. And God knew Juliet needed someone at least partially level headed to keep her from doing anything she hadn't thought through properly.

"Hello?" Everyone seemed to be calling out all at once, no one voice distinguishable from the others as everyone looked around.

A man with a gun soon appeared out of the darkness and all eyes were on him.

"Anybody infected?" he called out to them, still keeping them at bay with his gun.

"One of our group was." Rick told him. The rest of the group was silent, still remembering leaving Jim on the side of the road. The sight of him sat there as they had driven away seemed engraved in Carol's brain. "He didn't make it."

"Why are you here? What do you want?" Both questions were asked too quickly for Rick, who seemed to have appointed himself official group spokesperson, to give them any serious thought. The man probably just wanted to know what came to mind.

"A chance." Rick answered simply.

"That's asking an awful lot these days." the man said as he moved closer. Carol could see him clearly now. He might have been handsome once, but he was older now, world worn. He had sad eyes, eyes which said he had given up, lost all hope as he scanned over their group, taking in each member individually, perhaps weighing up whether or not to allow them to stay.

"I know."

She was sure he wouldn't let them. She clutched Sophia close and felt Juliet's hand on her shoulder before she realised she was about to cry. She felt exhausted. After all that had happened in the last couple of days she was not well rested enough to be dealing with this.

"You all submit to a blood test, that's the price of admission." Her lips parted a little. She honestly couldn't believe this man was taking in a group of strangers.

"We can do that." Rick said. He sounded incredibly relieved.

"You got stuff to bring in, do it now. Once that door closes it stays closed." She knew there was still some stuff in the cars, but everyone seemed happy just to leave it for now. Most had backpacks with what little they would immediately need with them. She was sure anyway that he just meant the door would be closed for the night. They could go out tomorrow, if they were staying for longer than that and bring the rest of it in.

They all piled in to a glass lift where Rick introduced himself.

"Dr Edwin Jenner." the man replied. He didn't shake the hand Rick offered him.

Some of the others spoke in the lift. Carol didn't. Juliet was a little away from all of them now. Carol could practically hear the ringing in her ears. She knew her daughter was claustrophobic, to the point where she found it hard to breathe in a small stairwell, let alone an elevator tightly packed with fifteen other people.

"Breathe." she told her gently. Her eyes had glossed over a little, but she blinked and looked at her blankly.

"I'm trying."

It was only when they got out of the lift that she realised they had been travelling down. Juliet looked green practically.

"We're underground?" she asked weakly.

"I think so. Hey, are we underground?" Carol asked loud enough for Jenner to hear her.

"Why, are you claustrophobic?"

"Not me." Jenner looked round, first to Sophia who, while a little scared looked okay, then to Juliet who definitely did not. He smiled at her faintly, which she did not return. Carol could hear her counting from one to ten over again.

"Your daughter?" Carol nodded. "Try not to think about it."

"Wow, wish I'd thought of that." Juliet replied drily.

"Can't be that bad if you're makin' sarcastic comments, can it?" Daryl asked her. Juliet just glared at him and kept walking.

Jenner brought up the lights and welcomed them to Zone Five. Carol wondered just how big the complex was. It hadn't seemed massive when they had been driving up to it, but that was on the surface. The rooms could stretch for miles further than that underground.

The room was big and airy, and she felt Juliet relax a little. It was easier to pretend you were above ground here than it was in the corridor.

"Where is everybody? The other doctors, the staff?" Rick asked him.

"It's just me here." Jenner told them.

"What about Vi?" Juliet asked him. He'd called Vi a couple of times now, once to shut of the power upstairs, once to turn the lights on down here. He looked at her like he expected her to know the answer.

"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them welcome." Jenner instructed.

"Hello guests. Welcome." It was a robotic voice which seemed to come over an invisible speaker.

"A computer?" Juliet asked again. He nodded.

"I'm all that's left." It honestly felt like all the hope they had regained when the shutters had opened for them outside had disappeared. "I'm sorry."

Jenner took them to what looked like a lecture hall, complete even with a whiteboard at the front, to take their blood. Juliet went first, before anyone else could.

"Brave." Jenner commented.

"Just didn't want anyone to go first and scare me." Juliet replied. She had her eyes pressed shut, but Carol could see the needle. She remembered taking her for shots as a kid, how she'd screamed and had to be pinned down. Carol used to take her for raspberry sorbet afterwards, because even as a kid she'd had to be as pretentious as possible. All the other kids were running about with chocolate ice-cream down their chins and she'd sit with sorbet, dabbing her mouth every time she thought some had got on her face, sighing at the other three year olds.

"You're scared of needles and small spaces? Today must be just wonderful for you."

"I'm loving every minute."

He jabbed the needle into her arm and she cursed violently under her breath. He laughed and drew a little blood out before he removed the needle.

"There, see, not so bad."

"I don't like you." He laughed again.

Juliet sat by herself until Sophia's blood had been taken, then Sophia went and sat with her. Juliet was doing her best not to lose patience with her, but it was clearly a struggle. She was about to go and retrieve Sophia when Daryl went over to them.

"Hey kid. You mind if I borrow your sister for a while. Need to talk to her 'bout some stuff." Juliet looked confused, but Sophia shrugged and agreed, getting up and coming back over to Carol who put her arms around her immediately. "You owe me." Carol heard him whisper to Juliet. She smiled and nodded.

"Thanks."

After learning that it had been days since they had eater properly, Jenner took the group down to the kitchen, where they were presented not only with food, but wine too. Everyone's spirits seemed immediately lifted, apart from Shane, who didn't join in with the mirth and sat away a little. Even Daryl was having more fun than him, teaching Juliet to take out the corks from wine bottles with her teeth ('It's a completely trailer park trash skill but you can start drinkin' faster'), insisting Glenn had a drink ('Whaddya mean you don't fuckin' drink Short Round, have a damn glass of wine'), getting Glenn drunk ('Whaddya mean you wanna slow up, have another glass') and then laughing about it with Juliet ('It's a damn shame we can't take pictures of this shit'). This was all well before dinner was even served, within twenty minutes of arriving in the room. Carol herself had drunk half a glass. Most of the others had managed to get on to their third. Juliet and Daryl had already polished off their fourth glasses and were now swigging something out of a bottle Daryl had found.

Carol wondered if she should be concerned that her almost twenty year old daughter could drink most of the others under the table. She shrugged it off.

Dale and Rick insisted Carl needed to have some wine with his dinner, which Lori reluctantly agreed to. Carol was glad Sophia didn't ask for any, because she knew Juliet would be more than willing to pour her a tall glass, and she'd probably finish it just to prove a point.

"Eww!" Carl exclaimed upon drinking it. Everyone laughed.

"That's my boy." Lori said with a grin in Carol's direction.

"Yuck!" Carl reiterated as Lori poured what little he had been given in to her own glass. "That tastes nasty!"

"Stick to soda pop there bud." Shane suggested. It was the first he had spoken since entering the room.

"I wanna see how red your face can get." Daryl told Glenn as he took yet another drink.

"I just wanna see if he can match me, drink for drink." Juliet challenged.

"I'm already way behind." Glenn sounded miserable. Juliet laughed and hopped up on to the counter next to Glenn. She had never liked sitting at tables.

"Drink quick then."

Rick thanked Jenner in a very brief speech. Everyone raised their glasses to him, Daryl his bottle before he passed it back to Juliet warning her not to drink all his booze. She laughed and made some quip about sharing and caring before he took the flask back and announced that she was cut off, which she laughed off before pouring another glass of wine for herself.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here then, Doc?" Shane asked Jenner. The happy atmosphere was immediately killed. "All the other doctors who were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We're celebrating Shane. We don't need to do this now." Rick warned him.

"Wait a second. That's why we're here, right? This was your move to find all the answers. Instead… we found him. Found one man. Why?"

"When things got bad, a lot of people just left." Jenner explained. Carol could understand this. Those people must have had families, loved ones to go home to, and they had no obligation to stay and find any of the answers. "When the military cordon got overrun, the rest just bolted."

"Every last one." Shane said, sounding drunkenly disgusted by this.

"No." Jenner replied. There was a hint of disdain to his voice, a clear dislike for the other man. Jenner told them about the suicides. Carol didn't listen. She was too busy looking to Sophia, who looked scared by this. Carol put an arm around her. Sophia looked helplessly over to her older sister, but Juliet wasn't paying attention anymore. Carol had known this was going to happen. Juliet always spent a few days interested in her and then weeks ignoring her in favour of someone more fun. She'd be there if Sophia really needed her but begrudgingly so. She was more interested now in the flask Daryl had presented than letting her little sister know she would be okay. Carol remembered why sometimes, love her as she did, she didn't like her oldest daughter.

"Dude, you are such a buzz-kill, man." Glenn told Shane. Juliet and Daryl laughed inappropriately loudly. Conversation managed to pick back up, thanks to Dale, and everyone managed to resume having a good time, if not as good as before Shane had ruined it.

Jenner, after dinner, took them to see their rooms.

"If you shower, go easy on the hot water." Jenner warned them as he walked away.

"There's hot water?" Glenn was slurring his words a little.

"That's what the man said." T-Dog replied gleefully.

Carol left her stuff in an empty room, with three very comfortable looking couches. Juliet didn't look too happy to be sharing with her family, but she clearly wasn't in the mood to protest it. She was probably silently wishing Amy was still there so she could share with her and Andrea.

"Shotgun on the shower!" Juliet called. She sounded surprisingly alert considering how much she had drunk. Glenn hadn't been able to match her, but Daryl had. Still, Carol was admittedly worried that she might slip and fall in there. She voiced this to Juliet who just laughed. "I'll scream if I do."

Carol spent the evening with Sophia and Carl in the rec-room. She assumed Juliet had just stayed in their makeshift bedroom, though she wasn't in there after she sent Carl to his room and took Sophia in to theirs. She was probably just waiting until they were asleep to come in. She'd be off reading somewhere, Carol was sure.

Daryl

Unless Daryl wanted to share with Glenn or Dale, there weren't enough rooms for him. He mulled about in the kitchen for a while and found another, unopened bottle of wine. The floor was beginning to look like a good substitute for one of the couches when he remembered the rec room Jenner had mentioned earlier. Hoping no-one had decided to move in there he trudged down the corridor and went in.

The room was luckily dark and empty. The couch looked less comfy than the ones in the makeshift bedrooms, but it would do. It was better than anything they'd had back at camp.

Just as he was dropping off to sleep he heard arguing outside his door, voices that were trying not to rise too loudly. He couldn't make out words or who it was; he just willed them to go away. He heard one walk away and the other stood outside for a minute or two before reaching for the door to the rec room and entering. Daryl sighed. Not one moment of fucking peace.

He saw as the figure turned on the light that it was Juliet, and assumed that it was probably Carol she had been arguing with.

She hadn't seen him yet. She walked silently in to the room, running a hand through her hair and turned towards the sofas. She looked startled, then apologetic.

"Sorry, did I wake you? I didn't realise anyone would be in here."

"'S fine." he replied.

"Want me to turn the light off?"

"Not if you're stayin' in here."

"Do you mind if I do? I don't really want to go back to my room. Carol and I aren't really seeing eye to eye right now." Their argument had sounded pretty bad. He didn't particularly want her there, but he'd feel bad turning her away.

"Nah, it's fine."

She sat down on the sofa beside him. He offered her his flask immediately. Juliet smiled but didn't take it. He shook it and she sighed, rethinking her decision to reject it, and took it out of his hand and took a large swig from it before she handed it back to him so that he could do the same. It was the first time he had seen her drink. He had assumed that she would morph in to an Amy-esque excitable, giggly bundle when she was drunk but if anything she just became an oddly dulled down version of herself. He hadn't heard her quote anything pretentious since she had downed the first glass of wine. Strangely, he wasn't thinking of it as an improvement.

"What were you fightin' about with Carol?" he asked her. He had picked up on a certain discomfort she had when he referred to Carol as her mother, and in this state she'd probably just yell at him for it rather than doing anything rational. She sighed.

"Sophia. Whenever we argue it's always about Sophia." She was slurring very slightly. She hadn't been when he'd left her after dinner. He wondered how much she'd drunk between then and now. "She's convinced I've been ignoring her all day, I mean I've been in another fucking car for most of it! But oh no, just because I want five fucking minutes to myself I'm a terrible person, it's like, she's not my fucking kid, y'know?" She was swearing a lot more than usual. Her lexicon was usually rather colourful, though not nearly as much as his own, but this was extreme.

"I ain't seen you ignore her before though. You're usually pretty patient with the kid."

"Well Carol thinks it's because I have you to talk to now and you're more interesting, which you are but only because you're older. I fucking hate talking to kids. I'm fucking terrible with them." She seemed okay with Sophia usually, but there was that whole pretentious thing which had disappeared. That probably made it hard to talk to kids. "It's not even that, but it's not like I can fucking talk to her, is it?" He assumed the correct answer here was just to nod along. "I'm just so sick of her thinking the worst of me. She blames me for everything that happened after I left home, like it's my fault she married an abusive asshole. I warned her he'd start on Sophia, I fucking warned her, and she didn't fucking listen and now we're here, stuck together because two and a half months ago Sophia phoned me in tears after he…" She stopped, looking as though she suddenly realising she was speaking. "Sorry."

"You got nothin' to apologise for." he assured her.

"You could have just told me to shut up."

"Why would I do that?"

"'Cause I'm talking too much."

"I don't mind. We're friends, remember?" This elicited a very small smile from her. It faded quickly much like every smile he'd given her.

"I failed her, didn't I?"

"No, you didn't."

"I did. I wasn't there when she needed me. It took me a fucking week to get to her after she called because I didn't even have the money for a flight there. Had to beg a lift off friends who were supposed to be on a romantic road trip. I should never have left her alone there in the first place."

"Carol was there." She laughed, almost bitterly.

"You've seen the size of her. You think she ever stood a chance against Ed?"

"You wouldn't stand much more."

"Least I've got a bit more weight behind me."

"In all fairness most people have more weight behind them than she does." She laughed again, sounding a little more like her normal self.

"I'm glad this happened you know. Glad they had to come to a camp surrounded by other people. He might have still hurt Carol but he never laid a hand on Sophia here, not to beat her, not for anything worse either." She put her hand in her hands for a second before she looked up, dark blue eyes fixed on him. "I thought she'd be okay. I mean he used to hit me but not the way he hit her. Never did anything else to me either, but that might have been the fact I had the sense to put a lock on my door, not that I blame Sophia for not. She's just a kid. She shouldn't have had to be terrified like that in her own house."

It was very abrupt that she started crying, noiselessly, putting her head in her hands again. Daryl was very aware that he couldn't just sit there and let her cry, yet a hand on the shoulder didn't seem quite reassuring enough. Rather tentatively and a little awkwardly he put his arms around her and she laughed again, still crying.

"Are you hugging me?"

"Seemed like a good idea."

"I'm not really a hug person."

"Obviously I'm not either." She smiled weakly and wiped away the last of her tears and rested her head on his shoulder, seeing it as a better pillow than anything else close by. He kept one arm around her and kept his eyes fixed on her, worried that she might start sobbing again. A little while had passed and she seemed okay. "You feel better now?"

"A little." she admitted. "Sorry for crying on you."

"'S alright."

"You mind if I stay in here?"

"Fine, but I was here first. You take the chair, I keep the couch."

"What, we're not sharing this ridiculously small sofa? Fine." She was smiling again now. He found it odd that she could switch from one to other so quickly, in a way which made him doubt a little if the smile she wore was genuine. If it was him he wouldn't bother. In fact, he didn't bother. It took a lot to make him smile. Juliet was the only person he was close enough to at the moment that he felt comfortable enough with that he would, and that had taken two months and a lot of long walks away from camp, and the fact that unlike most people in camp, he actually liked being around her and sought to spend time with her. Daryl had never had a friend before, and he wasn't sure if she constituted one, but she seemed to think that she did, and he liked the idea of not being completely by himself since his brother had gone God knows where.

Juliet got up from the couch and started rummaging through cupboards. She eventually found a blanket and threw it over to the chair. She took her grey sweatshirt off before she walked over to the lights. As she did her purple t-shirt came up a little with it, enough so the long, deep scar on her right hip was visible for a few seconds. She switched the light off, and through the dark he could just make her out feeling her way over to the chair and settling down in it, legs tucked under herself.

Juliet

Juliet awoke, she assumed the next morning. It was difficult to tell; they were underground and no light was coming in, but she felt well rested and fairly hung-over. Drinking games in college had not prepared her for drinking with a redneck who had probably been brought up on Moonshine instead of orange juice.

That same redneck was still asleep on the couch near her, she realised, remembering how she had argued with her mother before coming in here and drunkenly spilling her sorrows to Daryl. That was probably worse than getting so drunk in the first place. She hated getting emotional around other people, although Daryl had been oddly sweet to her. She just hoped he didn't mention it again, being such an emotional drunk didn't put her in a great light.

She left the room quietly, careful not to wake him up and went out in to the hall. The lights were too bright out here, and it still seemed like night because of the lack of natural light. She made her way to the kitchen and found most of the others already up.

"Hangover?" T-Dog asked her as she sat down.

"A little." She looked over at Glenn who had his head in his hands, groaning, swearing every so often that he would never drink again. She forced herself not to laugh. "Glenn's not doing so well, huh?" T-Dog grinned and shook his head.

"Not too pleased with you and Daryl for getting him here either."

"He chose to drink, we merely encouraged it."

"Sure, blame him. Anyway, do you want eggs?"

"I'm good with a black coffee if you want to make me one of those."

"Sure."

She sat on the counter drinking the coffee he made her, chatting to him as he cooked the eggs. She got down and went over to Sophia when she came in.

"Hey Soph, you sleep well?" Sophia nodded. "Look, I'm sorry we weren't getting along too well yesterday, it's my fault, not yours. I promise not to do it again." Sophia grinned and gave her a hug before she went to get her eggs and wandered over to sit with Carl. She saw Carol looking over but she didn't acknowledge her.

It was awful and she knew she was making things worse by doing it, but in some ways she wanted Sophia to blame her for everything that had happened. Now, with her father absent, Juliet kept feeling as though everything that had happened to Sophia was her fault. She hadn't been there when Sophia needed her, hadn't gotten home quick enough to help things when they were really bad, had gone off to college when she knew everything would just get worse if she left, and yet somehow Sophia still looked at her as though she was a saint, some amazing person who she was lucky to have, and Juliet knew she wasn't. She was worthless. She hadn't been able to help Sophia when she needed her most, and she hated herself for it. She wished Sophia would hate her too. It was quite obvious to even a casual observer that Carol hated her for not being there. Sophia should too and so she had begun shutting her out again, not wanting to see the looks of adoration every time she looked at her, but also in the faint hope that ignoring her, childish as it was, might make her hate her just a little.

"Mornin'." Juliet looked up and smiled at Daryl.

"Hey." she said to him. "Are you even a little hung over?"

"Nope. Bet you are though. Lightweight."

"Shut up, I drank just as much as you did."

"Nah. I had a whole bottle while you were off on your own. I win."

"Bullshit, you did not."

"'Least neither of us is doin' as bad as Short Round over there." He said, nodding at Glenn who looked like he was about to throw up, probably not for the first time that morning. Juliet smirked and nodded, taking another sip of her coffee.

"I feel a little responsible for that mess, but also kind of proud."

"'S his fault for listenin' to us in the first place. Where's everyone gettin' the eggs from anyway?"

"T-Dog's been cooking them for ages. There's loads left if you want some."

"You want some?"

"No but feel free to get me more coffee." Begrudgingly he took her mug and went to fill it as he piled his plate with powdered eggs.

"These aren't half bad." he told her as he scooped another forkful in to his mouth.

"They look foul; I think I'm happy to pass on them."

Rick came in, followed shortly by Shane, who had noticeable scratch marks up and down his neck. She heard T-Dog question him about them and listened to him give a brush-off answer about how he did them to himself in his sleep. Jenner came in before T-Dog could ask him much more about them.

"Hey." she greeted him, met with a nod in her direction as the others said hi to him as well. Most had taken to calling him 'doc' now, which seemed oddly familiar, as though they were all comfortable around him now. Juliet was quite happy just to call him Jenner, which he seemed to prefer to his first name. It was Dale who interrupted the general chit-chat this time for something more serious.

"I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..." he said to Jenner who looked moderately amused by this.

"But you will anyway." Jenner said. Dale looked a little embarrassed before Andrea pitched in.

"We didn't come here for the eggs."

"There's something I can show you all, if you want me to." Despite questions he gave them no further indication of what it was before all of them got up from breakfast and trooped over to the computer room he had brought them to when they arrived the evening before.

"Give me a playback of TS-19." He instructed the voice activated computer.

"Playback of TS-19." The computer announced as the screen came to life.

"Few people ever got a chance to see this." Jenner told them all as the image on screen of a head came to life, lights and impulses flashing through it. "Very few."

"Is that a brain?" Carl asked him.

"An extraordinary one." Jenner told him. He was watching the screen as closely as any of the others. Not that it matters in the end." He commanded the computer to zoom in.

"What are those lights?" Shane asked.

"It's a person's life... experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you... the thing that makes you unique. And human." Juleit was mesmerised by it. It was beautiful in such a strange way, and so odd to think that exactly that was in her own head somewhere. She looked over to Sophia who was stood with their mother. Both were watching closely too. Juliet wondered if Sophia would understand.

"You don't make sense ever?" Daryl asked him.

"He makes more sense than you with that grammar." Juliet chided him, not able to resist. He smirked and rolled his eyes at her. Jenner just glared at Daryl and returned to what he was saying.

"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death." Jenner explained.

"See, that was clearer." Daryl whispered to her, and she sighed softly, trying to pay attention to the screen rather than him.

"Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asked him.

"Yes." Jenner replied simply. "Or rather the playback of the vigil."

"This person died? Who?" Andrea asked. Juliet knew Amy was not far from her mind.

"Test subject 19." Jenner told her. That wasn't who though. Obviously this person had been someone before they were something to be tested on and recorded, and she was sure Andrea wanted an answer more along those lines than what Jenner had given her. Someone who was bitten and infected... And volunteered to have us record the process. Vi, scan forward to the first event."

"Scanning to first event." The computer announced.

The impulses in the brain began to darken, something spreading from the brain stem out to the other synapses in there. It looked sinister, ugly, yet somehow still oddly compelling to watch.

"What is that?" Glenn asked.

"It invades the brain like meningitis." Jenner replied. This was the virus, what you got if you were bitten by one of the walkers. This was what had happened to Amy, to Jim, to so many other nameless individuals who now walked around unaware of who they previously were. "The adrenal glands haemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be... Gone." The brain was dark now. There were no more impulses travelling around, there was nothing. This was death, what would eventually happen to them all.

"Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asked them.

"Yes." Carol's reply was cold. She didn't even look down at Sophia, she was too busy staring in horror at what was happening on the screen. Andrea looked upset and Jenner gave her a look. Lori looked over to her sadly.

"She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." Lori explained.

"It happened like this." Juliet explained a little further. Jenner nodded, and looked genuinely sympathetic to this.

"I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." he told Andrea before he gave the instruction to scan to the next event. "The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds." The brain on the screen seemed to come alive again, just a little, and not with as many of the lights inside it as before. Just the brain stem seemed to light up now. None of what Jenner had pointed out as being the part which contributed to the individual, only the bare minimum of it.

"The brain come back to life?" Juliet asked.

"Only the stem." Jenner told her. "Basically gets them up and moving."

"But they're not alive?" Rick asked. He sounded almost hopeful that this was correct. If it wasn't then they all had some atoning to do.

"You tell me." Jenner said, remaining seemingly ethically impartial.

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." Rick observed.

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neo-cortex, the human part... That doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct." Suddenly, a dark object travelled through the head, down the brain, and all the lights were gone again.

"Was that a bullet?" Juliet asked. Jenner nodded.

"Vi, power down the main screen and the workstations." Vi obliged.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea accused him.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal…" Jenner listed. The group just stood there in strange, lifeless horror. The scientist had no idea what this was, just what it did to the brain. All he had told them was what little hope there was if a person was bitten.

"Or the wrath of God?" Jacqui suggested. It was the first she had spoken all morning. She and Andrea looked as though they had the least hope left of anyone, though looking towards Carol, she didn't seem far off, clutching her daughter as if she was a lifeline to not allowing this all to drive her mad. She wouldn't even look at Juliet.

"There is that." Jenner didn't seem entirely convinced about this though.

"Somebody must know something." Andrea said, grasping at what little hope there was left now. "Somebody somewhere."

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol pushed.

"Any others probably went the same way as this one." Juliet said quietly. Jenner nodded.

"Probably. I'm not sure."

"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asked him.

"Everything went down. Communications, directives... all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."

"So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?" Andrea sounded like she had given up entirely. Juliet wondered how many of the others felt the same. She'd never held much hope about this situation, not from the beginning, but this conformation that there really was nothing was particularly hard to stomach, if only because Sophia had held hope since she had stopped. Unless she didn't understand – and by the look on her face, she did – that hope would go pretty soon.

"Jesus." Jacqui whispered.

"Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk again." Daryl cut in for the first time since the beginning of Jenner's presentation.

"Think I'll join you." Juliet said quietly.

"Count me in." Glenn said to both of them. Despite themselves, she and Glenn smiled at each other.

"Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... That clock... It's counting down. What happens at zero?" Dale asked, walking towards it and pointing. He had been uncharacteristically quiet though everything, probably worried about Andrea, who had become rather like his adoptive daughter since they had met a couple of months ago.

"The basement generators... they run out of fuel." Jenner answered nonchalantly.

"And then?" Rick pushed. Jenner did not respond and began walking out of the room, so Rick addressed the computer.

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur." Vi told them. She and Glenn shared a rather worried look.

A small group decided to go down to the basement to check out the generators. Juliet wasn't sure whether she was more bothered about the counter reaching zero of the image of the restarting brain which kept playing in her head. Most of those who hadn't gone had moved in to the rec room. She kept looking over at Sophia hut never found herself quite able to go over to her and say anything.

"Ready to start drinkin'?" Daryl asked her. She nodded.

"Yeah, but I'm not going to.I'm really not sure alcohol is going to be the answer in this situation."

"That's bullshit."

"Probably, but I think I'd better… I don't know. I feel like I should say something to Sophia but I have no idea how to do that without making it worse."

"And you think I'm the right person to ask for advice?"

"Certainly. If you tell me to do something then I'll know to do the exact opposite."

"Remind me why I like you again?"

"My witticisms and charm?"

"I don't even know what one of 'em is."

"It's okay; I blame the American education system, not you."

"You're much more fun drunk."

"Screw you; I'm delightful all the time." He laughed and she shook her head, grinning.

"Not the word I'd use."

"I really don't want to find out which word you would use, do I?"

"It's probably not as bad as you think."

"I still don't wanna know." He rolled his eyes at her and she did the same, sticking out her tongue. "Okay, I'm done being mature now, I should probably go find Sophia."

"That's gonna be fun while you're sober."

"I know, right?"

She wandered off to Carol and Sophia's room. Both looked up at her when she went in and she smiled warmly at them both. It was fake, but her fake smile looked so much like her real one these days, she could barely tell the difference herself.

"How you doing, Soph?" she asked her sister. Sophia shrugged and motioned for her to sit beside her on the couch, and she obliged immediately.

"We're gonna be alright, aren't we?" Sophia asked her.

"Yeah, I promise you're gonna be okay. Whatever this is… Rick'll sort it out." Sophia looked moderately reassured by this, but only for a moment, as she began looking rather worried again when the lights turned themselves off. She squealed and threw her arms around Juliet who stood and took the pair in to the hallway to hear Lori asking about the air.

"And the light in our room." Carol chimed in.

"What's going on?" Daryl asked, approaching them. Juliet guessed that with Rick and Shane gone he was kind of the leader and protector of the group. It was initially amusing, but thinking about it he probably wouldn't do a bad job. He cared a lot more than he let on, and his will to survive was probably more than theirs. Well, more than Shane's. Rick had brought himself out of a coma and survived a city full of walkers. "Why's everything off?"

"Energy use is being prioritised." Jenner replied. He didn't sound like he cared.

"Air isn't a priority? And lights?" Dale asked. To be fair they were pretty important things, surely they should be some of the last things to be switched off. Maybe they were.

"It's not up to me." Jenner said, liked he was a complete idiot. "Zone 5 is shutting itself down."

"Hey! Hey, what the hell does that mean?" Jenner ignored Daryl and they all followed him as he walked back to the computer room. "Hey man, I'm talking to you. What do you mean it's shutting itself down? How can a building do anything?"

"You'd be surprised." Jenner said. He sounded incredibly devoid of any hope.

"Rick?" Lori said as he walked back in to the room from the other direction.

"Jenner, what's happening?" Rick asked him immediately.

"We were just going down that line of questioning ourselves." Juliet said to Rick. "Please just give us an answer."

"The system is dropping all the nonessential uses of power. It's designed to keep the computers running to the last possible second. That started as we approached the half-hour mark, right on schedule." Not one person in the room didn't look horrified. Even Daryl, who was already pretty drunk, looked shocked. "It was the French." Jenner said after a moment.

"What?" Andrea asked.

"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know. While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs till the end. They thought they were close to a solution."

"What happened? Jacqui asked.

"The same thing that's happening here. No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs of fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?

"Let me tell you..." Shane started to say, but Rick stopped him.

"To hell with it, Shane. I don't even care. Lori, grab our things. Everybody, get your stuff. We're getting out of here now!" Everyone seemed to oblige, all making their way to the doors when the alarm began blaring.

"What the fuck is that?" Juliet asked.

"Thirty minutes to decontamination." Vi announced, sounding annoyingly cheerful about it.

"Doc, what's going on here?" Dale tried to ask Jenner.

"Everybody, y'all heard Rick. Get your stuff and let's go! Go now! Go!" Shane commanded them.

The door locked fairly promptly after that.

"Did you just lock us in? He just locked us in!" Glenn cried. She resisted the urge to sigh. Having someone point out what was happening was not making this any better. Sophia looked like she was trying not to cry, clutching Carol. Jenner himself moved towards one computer and began recording a message. Sophia started sobbing. She ran to her and put her arms around her, and Daryl tackled Jenner, screaming at him.

"You son of a bitch!" he yelled. "You let us out of here! You lying..."Shane and T-Dog attempted to stop him, perhaps realising that Jenner was their only shot at getting out. He knew how the controls worked, therefore he could open the door.

"Hey, Jenner, open that door now." Rick attempted to command him.

"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down. The emergency exits are sealed." Jenner explained to them.

"Fucking open them then!" Juliet screamed at him as Sophia started crying louder. "Shh, you're gonna be okay. I'll get us out of here, I promise, okay sweetie? It's gonna be okay." she whispered in to her soft blonde hair.

"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you once that front door closed, it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that.

"Yeah, we heard you say that, not they're closed, come in, spend the night, group suicide is noon sharp tomorrow!" she snapped back at him.

"What are you talking about?" Shane asked her.

"No-one around here thinks, do they? This is the CDC. They keep bad stuff here, diseases which could wipe out fucking countries if it hadn't already happened. A power failure would mean they'd have to be prevented from getting out, whatever the cost. I'm guessing in twenty seven minutes this entire place is gonna be destroyed. How am I doing so far, Jenner?"

"She's right. When that timer reaches zero H. are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out."

"H. ?" Rick asked. Juliet didn't have an answer for this.

"Vi, define." Jenner said.

"H. - high-impulse thermo-baric fuel-air explosives consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites the oxygen between 5,000° and 6,000° and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired." Apparently, what of this Sophia was able to understand upset her even more. Juliet was trying very hard to keep it together herself.

"It sets the air on fire. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief... Regret. Everything."

For a moment Juliet thought of everything she regretted. Everything that had happened to Sophia that she hadn't been there to stop, and how even with that weighted on her shoulders, this didn't seem like the better option. Easier, certainly, but not better. She wanted to make it right with Sophia, with Carol, make amends with them both and have a stable family now Ed was gone. Ed was finally gone, and it couldn't end like this. She wouldn't let it.

Some of them began trying to break the door down with axes, but it was useless. It was reinforced steel, most likely, and their axes wouldn't stand a damn chance.

"Open the damn door!" Daryl yelled for what seemed like the hundredth time.

"You should've left well enough alone. It would've been so much easier." Jenner sighed, already contentedly just sitting there, awaiting his imminent death.

"Easier for who?" Lori asked him. She was not ready to give up.

All of you. You know what's out there... A short, brutal life and an agonizing death. Your... your sister... what was her name?" Jenner asked Andrea. It seemed cruel, and rather a low blow to target the woman still clearly devastated about her sister's death.

"Amy." Andrea replied. There was a fondness in her voice, coupled with great sadness.

"Amy." Jenner repeated. "You know what this does. You've seen it." He turned to Rick. "Is that really what you want for your wife and son?

"I don't want this." Rick told him firmly. Those working on the door seemed ready to give up in a moment.

"And you." Jenner was looking at Juliet now. Cruelly, she thought that if he was targeting what he thought were weak links, while Andrea in her grief addled state was a good choice, she and Rick were poor ones, and he would have been much better targeting Lori and Carol in their respective families if he insisted on doing so. "Is the life out there really what you want for your little sister?"

"No. I wanted her to grow up and have a job, a family, whatever she wanted. I wanted her to be happy and lead a normal life, but I'd take filling her life with those walkers and still having her walking this earth than letting it end now and not even giving her a chance any day."

The few working on the door were fighting amongst themselves now which seemed ridiculous and was helping even less. Jenner joined in, so naturally Daryl ran at him with the axe he was holding.

"Daryl, stop, it's useless with him here but we're even more screwed if he's gone."

"You do want this." He was speaking to Rick again. Everyone looked rather confused. "Last night you said you knew it was just a matter of time before everybody you loved was dead." Jenner clarified, looking annoyingly smug.

"You really said that? After all your big talk?" Shane asked him.

"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?"

"There is no hope. There never was."

"There's always hope. Maybe it won't be you, maybe not here, but somebody somewhere..."

Sophia looked up at her and immediately, Juliet knew what she wanted.

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all." Juliet whispered to her. For the first time since that morning Sophia smiled, not for very long albeit and hugged her closer.

"What part of "everything is gone" do you not understand?" Andrea demanded of him.

"Listen to your friend. She gets it." Jenner advised. "This is what takes us down. This is our extinction event."

"This isn't right." Carol said suddenly. The entire group stared at her, just like they had when Juliet had spoken up in front of Jim. "You can't just keep us here."

"One tiny moment... a millisecond. No pain." Jenner told herm as though that made everything he was doing so much better. It disgusted her that Jenner thought he was doing them some kind of favour by forcing them to stay.

"My daughters do not deserve to die like this."

"Wouldn't it be kinder, more compassionate to just hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Jenner wondered. Shane looked about ready to blow a gasket, and as his gun cocked, Juliet realised he was probably about to.

"Shane, no!" Rick pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears.

"Out of the way, Rick! Stay out of my way! Open that door or I'm gonna blow your head off. Do you hear me?!" Rick managed to stop him from doing anything stupid. He stopped still and just looked at Jenner for a long time.

"I think you're lying."

"What?"

"You're lying about no hope. If that were true, you'd have bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out. You didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does." Juliet assured him. "Why would you stay if you were so sure there was nothing you could do?"

"I didn't want to. I made a promise... To her. My wife." He motioned to the large screen, and finally, they understood.

"Test subject 19 was your wife?" Lori voiced the groups shock. Jenner nodded miserably.

"She begged me to keep going as long as I could."

He continued but she didn't listen. She listened to her little sister.

"I'm scared." Sophia whispered.

"You don't have to be. I swear, we will find a way out of this. You will be okay. We'll get out and drive far away and forget we ever came here. We'll be alright. There's a way out somewhere."

"What if there's not?"

"There is."

"Let us keep trying as long as we can." Rick begged him. Jenner seemed close to conceding.

"I told you topside's locked down. I can't open those." He did however, open the first door, and Carol sobbed in relief, taking one of Sophia's hands and letting Juliet do the same. They were ushered out by everyone who had been trying the door. Daryl smiled at her as she passed.

"We're gonna get out of here, Sophia." Carol told her youngest daughter as they hurried out of the room.

They paused as Jacqui and Andrea decided to stay. Juliet was horrified about both; she was friends with Jacqui and Andrea was Amy's sister, and she felt as though she were failing her friend if she allowed her to die. If Sophia hadn't been there she would have tried, but she had to get her and Carol out of the building, and four minutes was not enough time to deal with both. In the end she would always choose Sophia over anyone.

Jenner had been right though. The top was locked, and the glass impenetrable. It seemed they had escaped one trap only to reach another.

"The glass won't break?" Sophia asked, sounding immediately terrified again.

"Rick, I have something that might help." Carol announced, reaching in to her bag.

"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it." Shane said spitefully, but she simply glared and pulled something out. Juliet was mentally cheering her on.

"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform, I found this in your pocket."

"I love that you brought that with you." Juliet told her, and Carol smiled proudly as she ushered both her daughters to cover while the glass was broken out of the window.

"Give her 'ere." Daryl said. Juliet looked at him in confusion. "There's broken glass and she can't jump that anyway." Juliet and Carol let go of Sophia's hands and Daryl picked her up and jumped out holding her. They followed quickly, and Juliet kissed Sophia on top of her head quickly before running back to the truck with Daryl.

They saw Andrea and Dale running from the building. It went up just as Jenner had said it would moments later.

"What the fuck do we do now?" Daryl asked, and for once, a smartass answer did not spring to Juliet's mind.


End file.
